Vigilant
by Paperclippe
Summary: After fleeing Kirkwall in the nick of time, Warden-Commander Mahariel returns to Vigil's Keep, hoping to hear news of the man she left behind. News she gets indeed - and a lot more than she bargained for. Anders/Warden. A sequel to "Broken Hallelujah."
1. Not Who She Was Expecting

_Author's note: This is a direct sequel to my previous story, Broken Hallelujah, which I wrote in 2012. You don't need to have read that for this to make sense, but there are some plot points and character development in there that I reuse in this._

 _Also, this story takes place between Dragon Age II and Inquisition, and I had started writing it before DA:I was released. I've tried to update the story to keep it as plausible as possible but I'm aware I might have fudged some timelines a bit. But that's why it's fan fiction._

 _Finally, this story currently has no ending. This is the first thing I've written (or, indeed, gone back to writing, as I started it before and then quit and then picked it up again) in almost three years. I'm basically testing the waters with this to see if I'm still capable of writing. You have been warned._

* * *

"Excuse me, Arlessa?"

Mahariel looked up from her desk, scattered with papers.

"I'm sorry to bother you…" a young woman spoke from her doorway. It had been open; Mahariel had a literal open-door policy when it came to any conflicts in Amaranthine that would need resolving. The young woman herself was a citizen of the arling; her parents had owned a farm that was burned by darkspawn. Mahariel couldn't offer compensation for the farm land; so instead, she gave the daughter a job as an assistant for the Keep and its staff, paying her a fair salary that would help her to support her parents. The papers strewn on the little table were probably more of the same; though Mahariel hadn't really been looking at them; she hadn't really looked at anything since about noon today. Something inside her mind was welling up, and when the Warden Commander had no painfully pressing issues, she sat quietly and shut everything out. It was the only way she could focus some days, to focus on nothing and shut out Ferelden, shut out The Blight, shut out Kirkwall, and most of all shut out that subtle bubbling force inside her, telling her to go, telling her to come, telling her to find depth…

"No bother at all," the Warden Commander said quietly. "What can I help you with, Anissa?"

"Nothing, indeed," the woman said politely, her hands clasped behind her back. "It's just, there's someone here to see you."

Mahariel's heart leapt.

It had been nearly a year. She knew he would encounter some difficulties leaving Kirkwall, leaving the whole of the Free Marches, and that was if they even let him live. It didn't matter who 'they' were, it only mattered what he had done, but they both knew the risks, both knew the risks for both of their actions. She wasn't even sure he was alive, but Maker, if he had made it here, year or no, she would welcome him with open arms, she would keep him safe she would -

She would what, Mahariel reprimanded herself. She would harbor a fugitive? What she had done, she had done in secret, tampered with old magics that would get her locked up, despite having no power of her own. Or maybe they would just hang her. Aiding an apostate, that was a hanging offense, alright, or was, which had been the problem. But that was not the issue now.

Putting her head in her hands, elbows on the table, Mahariel allowed, "Show him in. Keep him away from the guards." She didn't think that they would harm him directly, especially not as a guest in her house, but they were good men, and indeed, they were men, and men would talk, and rumors would spread, and she did not need that right now.

"Yes, Arlessa," Anissa now said, sounding less sure that she had done the right thing.

"And - just a moment, I'm sorry," Mahariel picked up her head. "What time is it? Can a meal be brought up?" A meal could be brought up at whatever damned moment the Warden-Commander Hero of Ferelden Arlessa of Amaranthine pleased, but after everything she had seen and done, she still hated to be a bother.

"It's just a little past eight, Warden Commander. No doubt the kitchen is still well-staffed."

Ah, yes. That was why she'd given that girl this job. She lied gently.

"Good, yes. Whatever's on hand. And wine. I think we'll need plenty of wine."

"Of course, Warden-Commander."

"And Anissa?"

"Yes?"

"Have yourself a glass, if you like. You deserve it," she almost added, "child," but thought at last that it might sound patronizing. Besides, Mahariel was not that old. Ah, but she was getting there. And she felt it every day.

Anissa left with a smile and Mahariel quickly tidied up the outer chamber of her room, before realizing that she herself probably looked a damned sight. Well, it was too late to have a bath drawn now, even with the pump system she'd had installed that would bring hot water up straight from the depths of the Keep where ancient hot springs had steamed for centuries, millennia. She could wash her face, though, and put on something that wasn't so… What even was she wearing? Well, she could put on something that didn't look so much like a paper sack. She did this, and unwound the plaits of her braid, and was satisfied she looked something like presentable, and slapped her cheeks gently to get a little color in them. It wasn't because she was particularly vain, but only that lately she'd looked particularly wan, and, contrary to the wrinkles she once feared, and then when they'd appeared around her eyes and mouth, embraced, her skin seemed tight on her skull. She stretched her wrists and back, sore from having sat all day, and then perched on the edge of her chair anxiously, listening for footsteps in the hall.

It was not who she was expecting.

"Arlessa, is it?" came his voice, gravelly and subtle.

Mahariel rose.

"Fenris."


	2. She Let Him

She sent Anissa away again, and invited the elf, her fellow elf, to have a seat. For a moment, there was a great, swelling silence and Mahariel thought she might choke on the air itself.

"I hope I am not intruding…?" Fenris said, and though his voice was soft, it was firm.

"Not at all… I just hadn't thought…"

"And for that I apologize. But I have little where else to go. Which is not to say I mean to impose upon your hospitality -"

"You are always welcome here," she opened her palms to him. Then he must not know. He must not be aware what she had done for Anders. "Especially after…" and she didn't need to say it.

Fenris flicked his eyes up to her, and there was that same blend of certainty and loss in them, but also something she had not known to find in him before, something very much like sympathy.

He made no comment about Kirkwall, only said sweetly, "It is good to look on a familiar face."

The word was out of Mahariel's mouth before she realised what the answer might be. "Hawke…?"

"We had, shall we say, a difference of opinion." He stopped, swallowed, looked away, looked around the room dark with heavy, rich wood, with thick fabrics hung from the walls, and amended, somewhat unexpectedly, "An opinion which I find I may have held incorrectly."

"Fenris?"

But the food was brought in just then, a thick stew and a hearty loaf of bread, cheeses, wooden bowls heaped with seasonal greens, and of course, the wine. All this was made room for on Mahariel's small table, a table which she had taken to using as her desk, if only because she hated sitting at the desk which was actually provided for her. When she used it, she felt like she was lording over the people whose business she handled. From the table, she felt like she might just be running a household. But the papers made their way to the disused desk to make room for sustenance, and when the serving folk had left the room, politely shutting the door behind them, Fenris pushed his lips crookedly to one side in lieu of a smile and said, "Why, I see to remember us having been here before."

Mahariel eased at this, her shoulders slackening and head falling down slightly on her neck, chin toward her chest. "Oh, Fenris, that this were The Hanged Man." She reached up in a way that kept her elbows locked at her sides and rubbed the bones below her eyes, then pushed her fingers out to her cheeks, her ears, as though trying to wipe years off of her face. Letting her hands fall into her lap, she looked up at Fenris in a slouched way and said, "But please. Let's eat."

They served themselves slowly and Fenris couldn't help but think it felt a bit too familiar, given the reason he had come here. He wanted to see her, yes, couldn't say exactly why, but he did, wanted to see her and wanted to know. The last time they had broken bread together she had kept a secret from him, and he believed he had divined the contents of her mind, the contents of the locked chest which he now thought he knew held something grave.

What he did not know was how he would act if she confirmed his suspicion, He'd played it out in his mind many times, had had plenty of time on the voyage to Amaranthine to analyze it and himself from every angle, but he thought now it might not be so much in what she said as how she said it, which was not like Fenris at all, that much about himself he knew.

Mahariel poured a glass of wine, lifted it to her lips, and set the glass down. She put her fists against her back and sat up straight, stretching. "It seems like all I do anymore is sit."

"Care to trade?" Fenris asked with a smile, and she saw that it must still be true; his posture, the firm contours of his body had not diminished at all over the past months, whereas she had found herself softening at the edges. Indeed, she'd probably been softening since the end of The Blight. Only now, though, did she really notice.

"Maker, yes," she admitted, guilty putting down a large chunk of cheese.

"Eat," he said, and hoisted a large hunk of bread, which he first dipped in his soup, then slowly devoured.

"Drink," she countered, and finished her wine, instead. "You look well, Fenris," she then commented, and she meant it. He still dressed in dark blacks and browns and greens, and it made the white of his hair stand out all the more fiercely. No, not white. Silver. Silver like the marks on his brown skin.

He turned his face aside subtly, and she could tell that taking an honest compliment was still something slightly foreign to the former slave. But he issued a quiet, "thank you," and then resumed his steady stance. He had eaten his fill, took a long sip of wine to steel himself. He had come here for a reason and there was no point in drawing it out. He wasn't sure he would want to spend a night under the roof of the Hero of Ferelden if his fears were true, and didn't think he would want to sit at her table either. But then, after all, he wasn't sure he wouldn't.

"I came here to ask you something," he said, no pretense or prelude.

Mahariel folded her hands in her lap, signaling she was ready to answer.

"When you left Kirkwall… What I mean to say is, it wasn't long after you had gone…"

She should have known. Fenris was not stupid. In fact, Fenris was one of the single most intelligent people she had ever had the pleasure of meeting, and despite his own prejudices, here he was, still giving her the benefit of the doubt, or at least the benefit of civil discourse. He deserved better than lies or misdirection.

"I did it, Fenris."

"Mahariel?"

"When I left Kirkwall the first time, it was to go to Tevinter. I went there, and I got the recipe, and I gave it to Anders. I only came back to give it to him. I am not ignorant. I know what he meant to do with it. And like a coward, I left. I left him to die, and consoled myself that he died doing what he believed in. That's the only thing for which I'm sorry. I'm not sorry for what I did for him."

She closed her mouth and stood, turning momentarily away from him, taking a few steps toward the door of her inner chamber, waiting for whatever response Fenris might see fit to bestow upon her. If he killed her here, with her back turned, she would consider it her just deserts.

But there was only silence.

Mahariel turned around to face Fenris, and found him sitting still, shaking his head. He was looking down, but not looking at anything particular, but his eyes were wide and he swallowed hard.

"You knew," she confirmed.

"I knew," he said softly, and then in a burst he stood and slammed his fist on the table, a half-empty bottle of wine careening to the floor with a thud and spilling. "Of course I knew!" he shouted viciously, then gave a wordless utterance and shoved the table quickly. The plates rattled loudly, jostled as they were.

Mahariel held her ground but put her fingertips to her mouth, eyes resting on the fallen bottle only because she could not make herself look at Fenris. She held firm in her heart, she was not sorry, but on his face there was only pain.

"I just thought we could change something," she said quietly. It was not a defense or an excuse. It was only honesty.

"I don't need your reasons!" His voice reverberated off of the room's oppressive walls, softened only by the tapestries. "I don't need to know why; I don't _want_ to know why! I already know why," he confessed, "I'd heard it a thousand times from that blasted mage, I don't want to hear it from you. I knew. I knew when you locked the chest," he looked up at her, eyes so magnetic they pulled hers up from the floor. "I suspected as much," his voice dropped, "and I did nothing to stop you. Either of you. I went -" he stopped, had to catch himself, lowered himself into the chair. "I went with Hawke, went with the mage, to collect your blasted ingredients. I went with Hawke because I wanted to trust him, wanted…" he choked a moment, veered. "And when Hawke let that Maker-forsaken apostate live, I left. I left him there. I fought alongside him, and then…" Mahariel saw him tremble, and Fenris bit his tongue before continuing. "But I was just as guilty as the three of you. Maybe more so. I…"

But that was all he said. He gripped the back of his neck, hunched in his chair and remained perfectly still, fearing movement might break his fragile resolve. To the ground, he murmured only, "I had to know."

Mahariel approached him cautiously, kneeling before him in the overturned wine.

"I am sorry to have hurt you," she whispered up to him.

He reached out a hand to her and reflexively she flinched, but he only touched her cheek, his long, calloused fingers curling around the underside of her chin.

"Hurt me…?" he said quietly. "No. I've only hurt myself. When I walked away from Hawke; when I continued to fight for some idiot ideal in the face of evidence. No. You..." and then he added an amendment that almost made Mahariel's heart stop in her chest. "You both only ever did what you thought was right. I only ever did what I thought I knew wasn't wrong." He stood, and with his hand brought her off of her knees to stand next to him. "That is nothing to base your life on," he confessed. Fenris pursed his lips and narrowed his eyes at Mahariel, "is it?"

"Isn't it?" she asked softly, "When very little feels right at all?"

"I see why people are drawn to follow you," he uttered, and his face flashed something that could have been a smile or might have been pain. He slipped his hand from her cheek to the nape of her neck and touched her hair. He tipped his own chin down, and he kissed her.

She let him.


	3. She Was Not Easily Broken

He hadn't meant for it to be that kind of a kiss. She'd kissed him before, but only on his face. He'd meant to reciprocate the tenderness she had offered him the last time they'd parted, tenderness in the face of adversity, of opposing ideals, but when his lips found hers, he was hungry in a way he hadn't felt before, not in his memory. It was the feeling he'd wanted with Hawke but was never brave enough to grasp.

He had meant to kiss her, and go.

But then his fingers gripped her hair and her hands were on his waist, and she made a sound like she was crying and he burned inside and pressed her back against the wall, his lips on her face, and her neck, and his were on her hips, pulling her closer while she pulled on him all the same. Something in his chest hurt and when she ran her hands up his back to his head to pull their mouths back together, he thought he might burst, or that he might die. It was the kind of agony he could only remember from the birth of the markings on his skin, except that this was delicious. Exquisite. He tugged at the folds of her shift to taste her shoulders, and she pointed wordlessly towards the closed door opposite the table where they had broken bread.

He was not gentle, and she was not easily broken.

* * *

She went to the small washroom to splash off her face, pull her tangled hair back into a bun. The water in the pipes was cold; it must be late now, the pipes cooled with disuse, the hot water too far from the surface to warm her skin. The coldness roused her senses, though, and she was thankful for it. It was only when she looked up into the small round mirror affixed above her basin that something that Fenris had said finally sunk in.

They had let Anders live.

* * *

Mahariel gagged quietly and her knees trembled, threatening to give out on her, and she clutched the basin, hoping that Fenris could not see her from this angle or that he was asleep. Asleep, in her bed.

In the dark, she tried to reason with herself. It had been a year. Yes, but it had been ten before defiled the memory of Alistair, and she knew he was dead. But if Anders was alive, and she had heard nothing? Maybe he no longer loved her. Maybe he was simply walking away from the Wardens again. Or, maybe he was a wanted man, captured somewhere, restrained. Or, maybe he had died after leaving Kirkwall and would be lucky to be buried in an unmarked grave where she would never find him. Which, what, gave her the right to defile his memory in a moment of weakness? Oh but it hadn't felt weak. It had felt unimaginably strong.

Before she admitted any other details to herself, she punched the stone basin and instantly regretted it, shaking her hand and sucking on a knuckle. Well, as much as she wanted to, she couldn't stay locked in the washroom forever.

Fenris was sitting up in bed.

"Are you alright?"

He may not have heard her gag or seen her tremble, but he'd almost certainly been made aware of the sound of fist on stone. He stood, and the blankets fell away from his body.

Mahariel had to look away. "I'm fine," she said, and bit the insides of her cheeks. Should she tell him to get his things and leave? He had gotten what he had come here for - and then some - but, if she were viciously honest with herself, she didn't want him to go. Dead or alive, she hadn't heard from Anders since she'd gone. And more than anything, Mahariel found herself hating more and more to be alone. She started to open her mouth to say something but decided against it and instead placed herself back into Fenris' warm embrace.

She only wished it didn't feel so right.


	4. She Might Never Have Been

Fenris held her. It felt… strange. There was a certain sort of wrongness in it, not because it was evil or because he thought he should be feeling guilty, but because he almost felt as thought she should be holding him. He let the thought go and sat down on the bed, easily bringing her down against him.

"Mahariel," he said against her hair.

"Lyna," she said, gently.

He looked up. "Hm?"

"Mahariel is my family name. Lyna is my given name."

"...I," he sputtered a bit.

"It's okay, Fenris," she said, and kissed his brow. "Would you like to sleep? It's late. I have some work I should finish but you… can stay here," she finally decided. She didn't tell him that she didn't want to sleep because she was afraid of the dreams that would come to her.

The Calling had gotten so strong lately. She wondered if Anders had felt it the same.

* * *

When morning broke over Vigil's Keep, Mahariel was already up; which was to say, she hadn't laid down again during the night. She had quietly washed and changed while Fenris rested, and piled the mostly empty plates from the previous night's meal on top of the table with the empty candlesticks to be cleaned, mopped up the spilt wine with a cloth from her washroom. She was working at her desk now since the top of the table was otherwise too crowded, dressed in a thin, summery shift, her hair braided and tied up high on her head, still damp from her bath.

She felt good. She felt warm. Before she had settled down to her work, she had leaned against her door frame and stared at Fenris, resting in her bed, for several minutes before she put out the candles and let him sleep. There was, of course, still a nagging, not so much in her heart as in the pit of her stomach, but she was quelling it slowly. She didn't love Fenris anyway, she told herself, no more than Fenris loved her. After all, Anders had been with others, even confessed to his feelings for the poor mage made Tranquil, and Mahariel had never held it against him. Right now, she sensed, she and Fenris were seeking the same thing: a way to not be alone.

Mahariel checked through one stack of papers for errors; it would probably be double and triple checked before it made it to the family it was actually intended for, but she was no slouch. Narrowing her eyes, she reread her words carefully, closely, and almost leapt out of her seat when she felt hands on her shoulders.

"My apologies," came a rough voice from behind her, and the warmth she had let go came rushing back to her heart, her stomach, her loins. Licking her lips, she stood slowly, and turned to face the silver-haired elf who had warmed her sheets the night before.

"Good morning, Fenris," she smiled at him.

"A very good morning indeed, M- Lyna." He wasn't sure if he should, wasn't sure what, if anything, bound them together now that the veil of night was lifted from them, but he bent forward and kissed her firmly, and was happy to find that even in the pastel glow of morning, she didn't pull away. He had been worried, had risen before the sun, but chose to remain in bed, wondering if it were only his previous rage, fear, sublimated into passion, that had joined them, and now, once dissipated, would rend them apart. But he found he did not hate her for what she had done, only found himself trying to understand it, knew how to understand it but could not himself understand it, and despite that, found himself still wanting to know every freckle on her skin, every hair on her head, again, and again.

It scared him, and was wonderful.

"Before I knew who you were, I saw you in The Hanged Man and thought that you were beautiful."

"Fenris, it's too early for flattery," Mahariel said, part in jest, but part seriously to quash any romantic notions the elf might be entertaining. "But," she confessed, "you're pretty easy on the eyes yourself." He was, at that. In fact, he was marvelous to look at. Long and thin and sinewy like a willow branch, eyes like a clear pond full of life, and his lips, she now knew, were just as soft and lush as their appearance let on. Everything else about him, though, was tough, solid, and more skilled than she had expected. Though, to be fair, she hadn't been sure what to expect, nor was she any great arbiter of what was skillful lovemaking. Alistair had been her first, and her only, until Anders. Neither had deprived her of any great pleasure that she could imagine, Alistair in his raw and innocent way, Anders much more experienced. But Fenris was almost violently passionate. It wasn't something she was sure could be taught. Maybe it had only been an outlet for his anger, maybe it was just a desperate forging of closeness. It wasn't better, wasn't bad, but it was so different. Alistair and Anders made love to her. Fenris… did not.

It occurred to her then that this was the first time she'd been with one of her own people. The two men she'd been with before had been human men, but she and Fenris were both elves. Mahariel wasn't sure what, if any, difference she had made, but had she stayed with her own people, she thought, the situation would more than likely have been entirely reverse. Indeed, when she was with the Dalish, her whole focus had been on her tribe and herself, especially her own physical and mental training; if it hadn't had been, she may never have been given the opportunity to become a Grey Warden - but then again, if she had not, she might never have been arrogant enough to go into that cave with Tamlen.

Mahariel took a deep breath.

"Care for a walk, Fenris?"


	5. She Looked Him in the Eyes

They walked in the woods around the Keep, sometimes holding hands, sometimes touching shoulders. In a patch of sun, Mahariel sat and warmed herself in the late summer light.

Things were slow. Things were quiet. Things, for the both of them, were the way they had almost never been before.

"Do you ever find yourself," she said slowly, "wondering what to do next?"

He was quiet, sensing there was something more.

"You and I both were thrust - more than once - into incredible situations with huge repercussions. We are not ordinary people, you and I. No one we know, even, has lead an ordinary life. But now…" she looked around, and put up her hands. "Everything's gone all quiet. Everything is calm, for the foreseeable future. And even if it's not, perhaps it's someone else's burden now."

He sat down beside her on the grass.

"So what do we do now?" she finished. "I have some work to do here, but who I am… I am not the right person to be in charge here. I am not the right person to be in charge anywhere. I've done too much, seen too much, and have too much expected of me. All I need is to find someone suitable to take my place. But even if I don't, no one is expecting me to run off and decapitate Darkspawn. No one is expecting that of you any longer."

"Maybe no one ever did."

"Hm?"

"Maybe the only people who ever expected those things of us… were us."

She froze a bit. This was not the answer she was expecting from Fenris. It was not an answer she had never come up with on her own, but to hear it from the mouth of what she had previously thought of as one of the most serious, severe, even stern people she had ever known quieted her. But he continued.

"I don't know, Lyna. I've wondered that ever since I killed Danarius. If I had left then, would Hawke have held it against me? I don't think so. I asked him much the same question then. He told me in so many words to do what made me happy. To ...settle down, if such a thing is possible. I don't know that it is. But you, you're a woman of means and always will be, even if you up and left this place this afternoon. You could… you could do anything."

She looked him in the eyes, sunlight behind her. "You could too."

He frowned. "I don't have answers, Lyna. I'm just as lost as you."

She acknowledged that he understood. Lost was the perfect word for it. He was lost and she was lost and they were lost together.

* * *

The sun tore at his skin through his dark clothes, their blackness, their roughness, amplifying the lights pricks and jabs. He rubbed his eyes, brown eyes, but red now with sleeplessness, thirst, pain. He was hot, uncomfortably so, but as he sat, rested against the thick trunk of an old oak, he shivered. Outside his skin was hot, but inside he never seemed to be able to get warm. Even as he shook, he ran his nails along his neck, itching away irritating beads of sweat. His strawberry blonde hair had gotten long; he tied it back as best as it could, if only for practicality's sake, but it was dirty and unkempt and strings would fall down his neck and into his eyes, and he pushed it back with restless hands. The stubble on his face had become a beard, as matted and uncared for as his hair. But that wasn't why no one would recognize him anymore.

No, after so much time, so much fear, so much struggle, it was because Anders' face was barely his own anymore. That face belonged almost entirely to Justice, and what was free of the spirit was gripped by The Blight.

He could hear The Calling even when he was awake now, even on a clear, sunny day such as this, and he gritted his teeth and flexed his jaws to block it out, tightened his shoulders and wrung his hands.

But he knew she would help him. She had promised. All he had to do was make it to Amaranthine in one piece. Just had to keep walking. He was almost confident that he'd hid out long enough and travelled far enough that only one major threat remained to him on his journey. Himself.


	6. She Tried to Remember

Fenris took Mahariel beneath a shady tree, then allowed her to dress and return to her duties. He wanted to stay outside, in the quiet, in the sun. He needed time to think. Maharial more than understood and left him in peace.

He paced for a long while, winding patterns with his feet between boulders, gullies, the trunks of trees. He had only one question on his mind: what was he still doing here? Fenris had come seeking answers; no, he had come seeing _an_ answer and he had received it. He had received it early the previous evening. He should have walked out. He never should have gotten angry with Mahariel; after all, all he had done was confirm his own suspicions regarding her actions with the mage. Why had confirmation of what he almost certainly already had known thrown him into such a rage? The answer, obviously, was that his temper was one of his greatest weaknesses, but it still upset him. He'd gotten angry and she had sought to understand him and overcome by her kindness he had pressed his mouth to hers, his mouth and then his body and then -

Even so. Maybe it was that they were lonely. Maybe it was the wine. Maybe he had come a very long way. Why hadn't he left in the morning? Why had she looked to him the way that she did? Why did he want so badly to walk barefoot with her amongst these trees again? To feel her bare skin, warmed by the sun, under his hands for hours, for days? Forever?

He shook his head violently, clapped his hands together and to his face. No matter where this argument with himself went, it would be a place that would only end in misery. They were lonely. They were starved for touch. Emotions were running high. They did what had come naturally. That was all. He would go back to the Keep and bid her farewell. He had gotten all he had come for, and more. He should leave her in peace while peace there was still. Fenris made for the path back to the fortress.

"No -"

The word struck his ears so suddenly Fenris lost his breath. His subconscious recognized the voice before his brain could put a name to it, and even after he saw the speakers ragged face, it took a moment for the elf to put the pieces together.

"Anders..?"

"Not you," it rasped in a way that seemed like it might have been a shout if the body were stronger. "Not here."

"Anders, it's…" Fenris held out his hands to the dirty, disheveled man. Fenris could feel no malice in himself for the creature if he had wanted to, if he had tried. "I'm not going to hurt you. Let me take you inside. Mahariel -"

"Don't you hurt her," it gasped, pointing an accusing figure. "Don't you _touch_ her!" Anders seemed almost as though he meant to throw a punch, but the action sent the mage off-balance and he pitched forward into Fenris' quick grasp. Anders tried to struggle, but Fenris had the advantage of his own honed strength and having had a hot meal in his belly within recent memory, and the mage's breath was soon spent. Anders struggled to fill his lungs and the air caught in his chest, sending into a fit of coughs. He wheezed through an inhale, and pressed a hand to his mouth, choking out a pink froth of blood. His bloodshot eyes fluttered shut, and his frame shuddered, slackening.

"Maker have mercy," Fenris muttered, and hoisted the mage into his arms. His frail body weighed less than Mahariel's, though Anders greatly dwarfed her in height. There was simply nothing left of the man. Fenris quickened his pace and jogged up the steps to the Keep. The doors swung aside to allow him passage, and Fenris barked an order to anyone who would listen: "A healer - fetch a healer," though even as he said it, he wondered why. The limp creature he held in his arms was once a man he despised, and then then a man he would have killed without a moment's hesitation. But Fenris' rage had exhausted itself the previous evening, and though it pained him to admit it, he knew he had to bring the man to Mahariel. Cradling the limp mage like a child, Fenris took the stairs to Lyna's chamber two at a time, calling her name as he ran.

"Fenris?" he heard her voice from beyond. "Fenris, what -" she burst into the hallway and caught sight of the elf and his baggage, and she froze, her mouth agape.

"...No," she mumbled, backing up slowly.

"I think he'll be alright," Fenris tried to assure her, "but we should get him to a bed. I told your people we needed a healer."

Blinking quickly, Mahariel came back to her senses. "That's… yes, let's get him into bed, " she backed into her quarters and opened the door to her bedchamber. "Lay… lay... " she pointed weakly, and Fenris released the mage.

"Lyna," he whispered, "are you…"

Mahariel averted her eyes.

Anissa stepped plaintively into the room, "Forgive me, Arlessa, but your guest had called for a healer…" a slender young woman stood behind Anissa, a mage, with hands folded and head bowed.

"Delia, isn't it?" Mahariel tried to keep her voice steady. "I've seen you in the library."

"Yes, Arlessa," the girl said shyly, quietly, and it occurred to Mahariel that this girl must be an apostate not to be in a circle.

"It's alright, Delia. You're welcome here. Please, right this way." Mahariel showed the girl into the room, to Anders, and then Mahariel quickly stepped out of her chambers, back into the study. She walked to the table, clear of dishes now. She put her hands flat against the wood of the table, hunching forward, shoulders to her ears. Taking deep breaths, she tried to keep herself from crying.

It was too much, too much all at once. Anders was back, Anders was nearly dead, or looked it. Anders was lying unconscious on a bed that still reeked of the forceful passion of the previous night. Her own body still radiated heat from mere hours ago. A shiver ran along the length of her spine.

"Lyna?" Fenris' voice, gritty and soft, came just over her shoulder. Mahariel straightened up, rolled her shoulders.

"Fenris," she replied.

"If you need me to," he offered, "I can - I should…"

Mahariel shook her head, turned around to meet his eyes. "Whether you stay or go is your choice, Fenris. What we -" but she stopped herself. "I don't even know what to think right now."

A small flash of a crooked smile danced across his lips, a smile purely of understanding.

"Well, then," he offered, "at least allow me to give you some room to breathe. I'm sure your girl can find me a space somewhere within these walls."

She returned his smile. "Anissa?"

The young woman presented herself.

"Let's see if we can't find Fenris a room."

"Of course, Arlessa. Ser?"

Fenris nodded, and obligingly followed Mahariel's assistant into the hall.

The Warden-Commander collapsed into a chair and pressed her face into her hands. "Maker's breath," she sobbed gently, her breath coming in ragged gasps and small sighs that she hoped Delia couldn't hear. When all her strength felt sapped, she pressed her face against the cool wood of the table and simply remained there, arms slack at her side, body still.

After a time, Delia emerged.

"Arlessa?"

Mahariel quickly stood and waited.

"This man… was he a Grey Warden?"

Mahariel pressed her lips together tightly into a shadow of a smile. "He was, Delia."

"Arlessa, my lady… I fear… It seems to be The Blight."

Mahariel closed her eyes. Of course. When it was quiet and still, in the small hours of the morning or the soundlessness of a calm afternoon, it almost seemed as though Mahariel could feel the very same Blight creeping around inside herself, hiding, waiting, biding its time, waiting for a chink in her armor, waiting for a night to make her nightmares more than just nightmares. Anders wasn't some useless be-titled noble, well-fed and drafting documents in a warm tower. Anders, judging from his sallow cheeks, his rough and matted beard, had not even had a roof to sleep under in some time.

And yet, he had remembered. He had fought his way back to Amaranthine, evaded capture, and returned to her, just light she promised he always could. There was still a man in there, a man she had loved, a man for whom she had risked everything.

"Is he awake?" Mahariel asked.

"No, not yet. I've done what I can, but… I'll need to research this."

But Mahariel knew what the young mage meant. Don't get your hopes up.

"Thank you, Delia. Take all the time you need. My resources are at your disposal."

Delia nodded gratefully and accepted her dismissal from the room.

Jerkily, stumblingly, Mahariel walked herself from her table to her bedroom door. She leaned against the doorframe, arms crossed, and let her eyes fall upon the figure in her bed.

If she hadn't once been familiar with every small line on his face, every freckle on his skin, she might not have known that this skeleton of a man was the mage to whom she had once given herself. His cheeks were so sunken, eye sockets visible in his skull. His hair no longer had the copper sheen it once possessed; it was now a dull, matted bronze, coarse and unruly, flecked with grey. She had never seen the man clean shaven but the ginger beard that hid his face made him seem an old man. His robes were rags, his skin was rough and dirty. She approached him, knelt beside the bed, and lifted one of his hands into her own. His fingernails were filthy, his skin was cold and clammy. Whatever was happening to him, inside of him, it was bad. Mahariel pressed his thin fingers to her cheek, her lips, hugged it to her breast.

"Anders…" she breathed. "I failed you. I should have stayed in Kirkwall. I could have protected you. Taken you away. Instead I turned you into… this." She closed her eyes and felt the tears start. "I'm sorry."

After a moment, she let his hand go, placed it back on the bed beside him, and crawled in next to him. There was almost nothing left to remind her that this was the person she had known the way she did. He looked different. Felt different. She tried to remember the way the coat he'd given her had smelled, like the ocean, like Kirkwall, like dirt and Darktown, but there was something distinctly human, distinctly him, about it. Something musky, something bright, something like the threat of magic. This man, this thin body, smelled like sickness, like sweat.

It didn't matter. She lay near to him, put a hand on his shoulder, and fell asleep.


	7. She Gathered Him Up

"Lyn'?"

It was only a whisper, but it broke through her dream. Mahariel came to and turned over to find two brown eyes, rimmed in red, fixed upon her.

"Anders."

He tried to reach out to her, to take her into his arms, but he trembled, so she gathered him up instead. He felt as though he were made of kindling and paper, and she held him gently, cautiously, pressing her lips against his forehead. It was hot, damp, feverish.

"I found you," he insisted.

"I was never lost."

"I was," he breathed.

"Not anymore," she insisted. "Never again."

"Lyna," he choked.

"Hey. I've got you now. I've got you."

"Thank you," was all he said.

The light in the room was drifting into golden twilight. "It's almost dinner," Mahariel said. "Why don't we get you cleaned up and get something to eat?"

"Oh Maker," he groaned. "I haven't eaten." He didn't say in how long, and Mahariel knew better than to ask.

"I can draw you a hot bath. Get you clean robes. I can…" she released him back down onto the bed. "No use talking about it. Let's just do it."

"Still a woman of action, I see."

And there it was. There he was.

"Always. You know me better than that."

Anders smiled, but on his thin face, it looked more like a cringe.

"Rest. I'll fetch you when the basin is full."

Mahariel rose and went to her washroom, exerting herself over the pump until the water that rose up to the tub was scalding hot. She put the stopper in the drain and filled the bath with clear, hot water. It was always tinged with a hint of sulfur from the springs, but Mahariel had learned to find it an almost comforting scent. They had given her dried rose petals to scent her bath, but she prefered the earthy tang of the rock from where the water was drawn. The rose petals smelled like a funeral. The sulfur smelled like the earth, like a place that was alive.

Beside the tub, she placed a rough brush and a thick, creamy bar of soap.

She went back to the bedroom and found Anders sitting up, fumbling with the closures on his robes. He looked embarrassed. Mahariel hadn't noticed it when she'd held his hand, but his fingers seemed unable to uncurl. It had seemed almost natural when he was lying down, fingers curled gently into fists, but now she realized he could not correct the curve without some difficulty. She smiled easily.

"Let me help you. I seem to recall I've done this before." She sat next to him on the bed and slowly removed each layer of clothing, throwing them into a pile that she would discard. With each layer he seemed to grow thinner, older; she could have counted his ribs, balanced plates on his hip bones, carried water in the hollow in his neck. And all of his skin was cool, unnaturally so, except for the heat in his head, the sweat on his brow. He shook gently but perspired. Mahariel had not seen someone so visibly unwell in a very long time.

Slowly he swung his legs over the bed and stood. He took his time, but he was steady, and that gave Mahariel a small spark of hope.

"This way, string bean," she chided. He tried to laugh his easy laugh. It came out like a cough, a gasp, but it escaped his chest, and Mahariel was glad for it.

She helped to lower him into the bath and handed him the scrub brush and soap.

"Think you can manage it or shall I wash you like a child?"

"Hey now, be nice. I'm a fugitive. You should be happy I'm alive."

Her breath caught in her chest, came out in a halting way.

"You don't have the faintest idea," and she knelt, and pressed her mouth hard against his, tangling her fingers in his matted hair. Quickly, though, she broke away, but held his face in her hands for a moment, tracing the line of his cheekbones with her thumbs. They were more pronounced than ever, and just below them was tangled a brassy beard, but they were his, all the same.

"I'll be right back. I'll get you new clothes. I'll bring you something to eat."

She rose, and started to walk away.

"Mahariel. Lyna," he called, and she stopped.

"Hm?"

"I love you."

Her lips parted uneasily.

Sensing her hesitation, Anders turned to his grooming. "I… um…." he swallowed back his words. "Could you also bring me some scissors? I haven't seen myself in months but I have this feeling that I look ridiculous."

Mahariel took a breath, turned back to the doorway. "You wouldn't believe."


	8. She Lowered Her Voice

She stalked down to the kitchens to get away from her own thoughts. She could have easily sent for Annisa or any of the Keep's caretakers, but the walking felt good. The doing felt good. She could shut off a part of her mind so long as she was moving. Mahariel focused on the task at hand.

I need to get food for Anders. He looks like he's starving. What does he like? He needs something filling. Something to drink.

But the nagging always return. When was the last time he ate? Why couldn't I take care of him? Take him in? Smuggle him out of Kirkwall? I was too busy covering my own ass, that's why. Didn't want to get caught up in the aftermath, didn't want to wait for it all to come down on top of her.

This was not the first time she had had these thoughts. But normally they were just a small niggling darkness at the back of her mind before she fell asleep. Now, with Anders here, thin and wan and ill, slowly being consumed, subsumed, by the same blackness that tainted her own veins, would take her all the same, her bleak thoughts were concrete. It was suddenly all too real, what he had done, what she had done for him. Burned Kirkwall. Incited rebellion. Brought the Chantry to its knees.

"What can I fix for you, sirrah?"

Her feet had brought her to the kitchen without her mind being privy to the journey, and her cook, Eva, was waiting patiently for a response.

"I…" Mahariel slapped her face gently. "Forgive me, Eva, it's been a strange couple of days."

"Of course, sirrah. You'll be wanting something for the young man in your chambers?"

Which one, Mahariel almost laughed, and then thought, no, he's not a young man anymore. None of us are young. But instead she said, "Yes, Eva, thank you. Something hearty. Something rich. If he's not actually on death's door he certainly looks it. Let's plump him up a bit, shall we?" She tried to be bright. Casual. But a thin film of sweat was coating her brow.

"That's what I'm best at, m'lady Arlessa," the cook put her fists on her hips. "Got five boys myself; four of 'em are thick as the walls of this here keep. The fifth's a rail of a thing, but of course, there's one in every bunch." She shrugged and insisted, "But we'll get some meat on your frail boy's bones. Give me naught but an hour and we'll bring it right up to him."

Mahariel paused. "...Can I help?"

Eva crossed her arms, tilting her head in a circle to slide a stray hair back out of her face. She lowered her voice. "Now, this isn't any of my business, truly, but I want to tell you, you've got two very handsome guests in your home. Seems to me you should be giving them a little attention."

Mahariel turned pink, but she smiled. "Oh, Eva. That's the problem"

The cook shook her head. "Out of my kitchen, girl, or you'll be on permanent potato-peeling duty."

Mahariel put up her hands. "I know when I'm beat."

"And that's why you're a good leader," Eva said, but by the time Mahariel thought of an answer, the woman was elbow-deep in dough. "Out," she insisted, and Mahariel went, but not before nicking the remains of a loaf of hard bread left over from the morning's breakfast, spiriting it away in the folds of her shift like a sly child. Behind her, she heard Eva's gentle chuckle.

* * *

Unable to think of anything she would say to Fenris about the situation, the Warden Commander returned to her chambers, softly closing the door to her study behind her. From deeper within the room, she heard earnest splashing. Peeking into the washroom, Mahariel whispered, "Knock, knock."

"Ah, she returns," Anders said, cheerful still. He'd always had that about them. When not in the bleakest of moods, Anders had an insatiable good humor. Despite his desperate physical condition, a weight seemed to have been lifted off of the man's shoulders, but Mahariel could never be certain, for Anders was also not above using his humor to deflect real concerns. It made him hard to deal with, made him occasionally inscrutable, but right now, Mahariel was thankful for his brave face, if that was indeed what it was.

"Dinner's on the way. Eva's promised to fatten you up."

"I don't know this Eva, but I think I love her."

"And I snuck this out for you," Mahariel proffered the bread.

"Don't you run this place?" Anders leaned his soapy arms over the side of the tub. "In fact, don't you run this whole arling? I don't see you needing to sneak yesterday's bread out of the kitchens."

Mahariel rolled her eyes. "Do you want it or not?"

"I do. Very much," he reached his wet hands out and sloshed water over the rim of the basin.

"Oh, Anders, you're making a mess!"

Anders looked up at her pleadingly, opening his mouth and pointing a finger at his face like a child.

Mahariel pressed her lips thin and tore off a hunk of the bread, stuffing it into his open maw.

"Fank yew," Anders mumbled through half-chewed wheat flour. He ate quietly for a moment before his eyes fluttered a bit and he moaned, "Oh, Maker, this is the best thing I've ever eaten."

"I doubt that," Mahariel said, but she knelt beside the tub and fed him the rest of the loaf that way.

"Ugh," Anders groaned, leaning back in the basin as the water cooled. "I don't know that I'll be able to eat dinner after that."

Mahariel's face fell a bit. The loaf had not been large, perhaps the size of both of her fists together. They were what the kitchen gave the guards and groundskeepers first thing in the morning: a small loaf of bread and a canteen of warm mulled wine or cider; mornings remained cold at the Keep even late into spring and very early in the fall. It kept them warm and happy until they could come in and switch shifts for lunch. It was not meant to be a meal. It was barely a snack. Mahariel had eaten her fair share. For Anders to be full on such a small portion meant it must have been days or more since his last meal.

"Anders, I'm sorry you -"

He promptly cut her off. "Did you bring me those scissors?" It seemed he did not want to dwell on his past predicament anymore than she did.

"I have some in my bedside table," she answered, and left him briefly to collect them.

Anders stared down into the filthy tub. He reached forward to pull the plug and drain the basin, his joints and spine cracking audibly as he did so. As the water receded, he leaned back and took note of the black patches of skin that were creeping around from his back, along his ribs, down his legs like blighted vines. Indeed, he was Blighted. Maybe it was the calm that crept across him from the warm bed, the hot bath, the filling bread, but he realized he had done what he had set out to do, and he had returned to Vigil's Keep, returned to Mahariel, like she always said he could, should. At least when he died, he wouldn't die in the cold, dark Deep Roads. He wouldn't die alone. He would die in a familiar place, in the arms of someone he…

Well, loved.

But her reticence when he had said as much made his heart grow colder. It had taken long enough for her to say it to him. Now she seemed to have taken it back.

The sound of snipping scissors made him look up, and Mahariel stood in the doorway, one hand on her hip, the other aloft, cutting the air viciously.

"Let's see if we can't find a face under all that hair," she said with a wicked smile, until her eyes found the wretched blackness that scrolled across Anders' white skin. She knew what it was. She didn't have to ask. Mahariel pressed the flat of the scissors against her chest and rolled her lips between her teeth. Anders only shook his head.

"It's nothing," he lied. "I hope you've also brought a brush." He attempted to run his fingers through his hair and showed her how they stuck.

Mahariel said nothing, only reached over to the small vanity to retrieve her comb and a small length of blue ribbon she used to tie her own hair back. "I hope you don't mind blue," she deflected, and reached for a towel from inside the little cabinet.

As she handed it to him, he said, "Blue was always my color," and he wrapped the equally blue towel around his waist, hiding his hips and thin legs and as much of his disease as he could. He trembled and reached out for Mahariel's arm. She gave it to him and he stepped out of the basin.

"Come sit at the table. I'll fix you up."


	9. She Laid Her Head Back Down

It took the better part of an hour, but Mahariel brushed out Anders' tangled hair, tied it back, and chopped it into a more functional length, made him tip his head back and she trimmed the coarse hairs of his beard, and reduced it into the more familiar short stubble she had never seen him without. When she was done, Anders almost looked like himself. He weighed, she estimated, two-thirds of what he had when she had last seen him, and when she got close to his face she could hear his breath whistling in and out of his lungs, a quiet but persistent wheeze that betrayed his ill health even when he hid it with a smile. Anissa came in while Mahariel was trimming and laid new robes out on the bed for him. Mahariel helped him dress, covering his black, puckered flesh with soft grey cotton, smooth dark blue silk, all reminders that this was home to Grey Wardens, that Mahariel was their commander, that the clothes they supplied were meant to dress forces, armies.

"Well," Mahariel said, crossing her arms, "I won't say that you look good, but it's a definitely improvement. She gathered up his hair trimmings in his damp towel and laid it aside to be collected by the washer folk.

"You still look beautiful," he ventured quietly from his seat at her table. Mahariel averted her eyes, chewing the corner of her mouth. Anders sighed. "Alright. I know when to stop."

Clucking her tongue, Mahariel pulled out the opposing chair and sat to face him, her dark blue eyes fixed on his brown ones. "It's not like that, Anders. It's just…" she paused, and he remained silent, to let her think. "I never once heard word of you. One minute you were in Kirkwall, and then, you were not. No one saw you. I thought…" she looked at her hands, palms up in her lap. "Anders, I thought you were dead."

He reached out, dared to touch her fingertips with his own. "Not quite yet," he said. "I'm almost there, but not quite yet."

* * *

The food came, and they ate quietly. Anders ate slowly, taking small bites, small sips. Mahariel drank wine, picked at a dish of greens covered in a savory brown sauce. Dunking his bread in his soup, Anders chewed plaintively. He quietly wondered if he should mention Fenris. He wondered how long the elf had been at the Keep, lending his company to Mahariel. A soft jealousy burned in his chest, damped by the relief of his hunger, the warmth of his clothes, the care Mahariel had taken with him. He wondered too how far the Blight had progressed within the Warden-Commander; she had been shocked to see his vile skin, but even in her last missive to him she had mentioned The Calling. And yet here she remained, safe in her castle, living the life of any noble. Something seemed small about her now, something had quieted that had once been loud. He wondered if it had anything to do with their shared Taint, or if perhaps she were just growing old, tired. They had both seen so much. Anders had fought alongside the Champion of Kirkwall, but before that, Mahariel was already the Hero of Ferelden. He wondered if maybe all the fight were simply gone from her. He had no doubt it was gone from him, if not mentally or emotionally, certainly physically. It had taken every last bit of his strength to claw his way to Amaranthine, running at times, biding at others, starving and sickening and weakening until the Blight had taken hold. He knew that even if he got his strength back, he would not recover. He could tell when he felt Justice getting restless. The spirit was not ignorant to its vessel's plight. It knew that it would either need to find a new host or a way back into the fade, or it would perish. And even if Justice were good, it was not kind. It had no need to be kind. Once Anders was spent, it would not mourn for him. There was no point.

"I missed you so much."

Five words broke the silence, spilling from Mahariel's lips.

"Maker's breath, Anders, I thought you were dead. I thought I'd lost you. I wondered if it were my fault, if everyone I loved, everything I touched were going to be taken from me forever. I thought I brought this on myself, that maybe this was my penance for - for - " she stumbled on her words, choked back a sob, fell from her chair and onto her knees, resting her head against his lap. "I thought that he had died and you had died and I had killed you both." She said it through her teeth, said it through anger, the kind that can only come when kindled first by sadness. He could feel her shoulders tighten, body becoming stony as she froze up, struggling to keep her feelings pressed deep within herself.

He laid a bony hand on her hair. It seemed thinner than he'd remembered, but softer, too. With his thumb, he pushed a wavy lock behind her angular ear, curled his fingers around to her chin and cupped it, tipping her face up toward him.

"I never met Alistair," he said, "but if he was anything like me, I think he would agree that you did no such thing. I think… I think you saved us both."

"I left you, Anders. I left you behind. I should have stayed in Kirkwall."

"To what end? To be killed? I was able to run because I was one lone man, because I got out before they started looking for me. So many mages, so many people did not. They stayed behind. And they were cut down, one by one." He reached forward, put his hands on her shoulders. "You did exactly what I needed you to do. I wouldn't wanted you to have stayed. You have people to whom you mean something. Why sacrifice yourself?"

"I promised to help you, Anders."

"And you did, didn't you? Kirkwall was no small part in beginning the mage rebellion."

She laid her head back down on his lap. What happened in Kirkwall. She thought about it most days. Innocent lives were taken because of what she and Anders had done, she did not delude herself about that. She could only remind herself how many more might have been if they had done nothing. These were dangerous times for mages now, but their plight had become visible. They had strong allies. The Champion of Kirkwall never opposed what Anders had stood for, and while Mahariel's own actions were still a secret, her words and deeds, the letters of protection she signed, the aid she had sent to rebel mages who requested it, made her point of view very clear. Mages were no longer being tortured, made Tranquil, put down in secret by a Templar order whose actions went unchecked. Mahariel had done something, really done something. But she still often wondered if she had handled the situation the way that she should have.

"Do you ever regret it, Anders?"

"Not for a second. I do consider it. I'm not heartless. But there was no other way. We could have sat and talked, but how long would Meredith had lingered? How long until we knew what terrible darkness had eaten her up inside? No. We needed change quickly. We achieved that."

His confidence bolstered her and slowly she rose and returned to her seat, pulling her chair forward until their knees touched.

"You achieved that," she insisted. All she had done was track down an ancient recipe. He had taken action.

But he reached out and squeezed her hand, brought her fingers to his lips and said softly to her skin, "You gave me that strength."

* * *

 **Author's note** : Sorry this took so long to post. Between the first of June and now, I have moved in with my SO, quit my old part time job, started a new full time job (doing what I was doing at my part time job but for more money hooray), and rearranged the schedule at my other part time job (that I'm only keeping out of love and you'll have to pry me away from that place when I'm cold and dead).

All that having been said, expect regular, or at least weekly, updates, and have no fear, I'm writing more as we speak. As I speak. As you read. Right now. Whatever.

Also, I've begun to beta read again. Now, I'll only be doing one story at a time and the one that I'm working on now is amazing but also very intense for a number of reasons. But if you're interested in me beta-ing something of yours, shoot me an email or keep your eyes peeled on my beta profile page; I'll come out of hiatus mode when I'm finished with the project I'm working on now. And if I find myself with more free time (could be likely, but my poor body would also have to agree with me hashtag spoonie problems) I might consider working on more than one thing depending on how intensive each project is.

Anyway that's a whole lot of words that aren't anything to do with Anders or Fenris or Mahariel so I'll sign off now but not before asking kindly for your thoughts in the form of a review. Thanks!


	10. She Could Smell the Water

When he had eaten his fill, Mahariel returned him to bed. The emaciated man could hardly hold his head up. She didn't know how to help, but she knew more rest couldn't hurt. She drew her bedroom blinds and closed the door to give him the solitude he might need to sleep soundly, but he looked so tired she thought he might also sleep through the end of the world, a situation with which she was not unfamiliar. In her study, she lit candles against the evening and leaned near the window, one hand in her hair.

What was she to do with this man, this mage, this creature she once had loved? Her heart was hesitant. Before he had stumbled back into her life, thin and sickly and blighted, Maharial would have told anyone who asked that this was the man with whom she was in love. Even after Fenris had shared her bed - physical comfort was not the same as what Anders had given her, not just in Kirkwall, but even when they had first been acquainted at the Keep. It was unspoken between them, but it had been undeniable that what they had together.

So what was wrong? It wasn't his appearance, his illness, his Taint. She was a Grey Warden as much as he; it was something of which neither of them would ever be free. The tribulations of Anders' convictions were all that separated the progression of his disease from hers.

What was left? What was different? When she looked into his eyes, was it not the same man that she had seen for years?

Was it her?

Mahariel chewed thoughtless at the insides of her cheeks, her bare toes curling and uncurling on the smooth wooden floor beneath them. She felt uncomfortable: uncomfortable in the Keep, uncomfortable in her study, uncomfortable in her own skin. Two of those three things she could change. Mahariel snuffed out the candles in her room and padded softly out of the fortress.

* * *

Nighttime treated Amaranthine gently. In the distance, Mahariel could hear waves sloshing; the sea came almost to her doorstep, a small inlet from the bay, salty and full of whispers nevertheless. She could smell the water, feel a gentle breeze rustling leaves, rustling her loose hair. She stepped lightly between the trees, guided only by the light of a half-full moon. It didn't filter through the leaves like ambitious sunlight; it pooled on the ground instead, collected in open spaces and gave way to denser shadows that pushed it away.

The Keep was built on mountainous terrain but the original Avvar architects had worn paths into the mountainside and it was upon these Mahariel now trod. There were small rustlings in the trees; the sounds of these night creatures were entirely familiar to her. She often wondered if she might come across another stray feline, but none ever crossed her path. Sir Pounce-a-Lot seemed to have been an outlier, an opportunist who knew how and when to make his furry move. She wondered why Anders would have gotten rid of him (and pinned it on her). She had never thought to ask while she was in Kirkwall. Maybe she could ask him now.

Behind her, Mahariel heard a sound she didn't recognize as forest noise, but it was familiar to her nevertheless.

"Fenris?" she asked first, and then turned to face him.

"I thought I heard you leave the Keep."

"I'm sorry," she said. "I didn't mean to send you away like that. I just… didn't know what else to do."

He took a step forward and reached out to grasp her hand. It was not a presumptuous action; quite the opposite. He seemed to be asking her forgiveness with the tips of his fingers, the skin of his palm. He didn't meet her eyes when he offered, "I can't begin to know what you're going through."

"I don't know what I'm going through. It seems I almost never do. Life just keeps throwing strange occurrences at me. I would expect I'd be used to it by now, but…"

Fenris shrugged gently. "Perhaps that just life. Though to say your occurrences have been strange than most would be a dire understatement."

"And they just keep coming. It's like one thing feeds the next."

Fenris was silent for a moment, then asked, "Are you glad to see him?"

"I don't - Yes. I am. But I'm not sure what to do now."

"He's dying." It wasn't a question.

"We're both dying," she returned.

He was quiet, so she went on.

"You knew I was - I am - a Grey Warden?"

"Yes, of course, but I -"

"Fenris, I drank the blood of Darkspawn. I'm Tainted. I'm just as Blighted as he is. I'm just… shut up here in this fucking castle, waited on hand and foot. I'm well. I'm well-fed. He's starving. He's sick. He's being eaten alive. I'm just delaying the inevitable. But it's happening to us both, make no mistake."

"You feel responsible."

His words caught her cold.

She had felt responsible for what had happened after Kirkwall, for leaving him alone. But that wasn't the root of Anders' problem, not at all, no. He was dying this way because of her. She practically raise the cup to his lips.

Reaching up, Fenris touched her face, and she drew back from him.

"Lyna."

Steadying herself, Mahariel sucked in a deep breath.

"You don't always have to be strong, Lyna."

"Don't I?" she asked. Ever since she encountered the eluvian, she had had to be strong. "If not me, then who?"


	11. She Saw the Man She Knew

She went back to her study with her arms folded fiercely over her chest, a terrible cold settling into her body, into her bones. She could have a pot of tea brought up to warm her but the brief interaction required to ask for it - or even to say hello to her kitchen crew if she were to make it herself - seemed like far more than was worth the effort. Her lungs felt squeezed; the very idea of speaking threatened her. She wanted to be alone somewhere, somewhere quiet and dark and -

Was this it? Was this what it was like when The Calling pushed into her waking thoughts? She heard no mysterious voices, felt no threatening tug. She only felt like her heart was pounding too hard, like her voice would not work if she tried.

Her feet took her to her table, clear now of the dinner she had shared with Anders. She wondered if he were still resting. She wondered if he dreamed.

Finding the flint on her desk and lighting a single sturdy candle, Mahariel approached her bedroom door, slowly and slower still as she quietly became afraid of what she might see in her bed. She herself had such terrible nightmares, waking her up in a cold sweat, sheets twisted around her body, strangling her limbs, if she had not managed to toss them all together to the floor. She didn't know if she screamed or called out but she feared she might, feared too that she might contort into some horrible unbidden shape. When she woke up she was always sore.

But she listened, a few feet away from the door, and heard only silence. Reaching out, she twisted the knob and pulled the door ajar.

In the dim light of the candle, Anders face seemed almost serene. The pits of his eyes were exaggerated by the flickering illumination, the hollows of his cheeks looked deeper than ever. But he seemed to sleep soundly, covered up to his chin, one hand pressed beneath his cheek while he lay on his side. The covers rose and fell subtly but definitely with the motion of his breath.

An audible exhalation escaped Mahariel's chest, full of relief. She set the candle down on her nightstand, thin rivulets of wax already beginning to pool in the candleholder. Stripping down to her soft white shift, she slipped into bed beside the sleeping mage. He stirred gently but did not wake, not when she pushed soft amber hair away from his cheeks nor when wrapped a thin, strong arm around his waist. In the dim light, Mahariel saw the man she knew. She touched her nose to his, breathing his breath, and let herself fall asleep.

It was Anders who awoke first in the hazy grey morning, a thin sweat of panic broken out on his forehead. Something inside him told him dawn was breaking, and he had to start moving, get up, get going, they might be behind you -

And then he recognized the bedsheets, the robes (had he been too tired to undress himself? Of course he had, and his hands were still curved like claws), the sleeping figure beside him.

And he noticed a thin blue light receding from his own body. Woefully, he pressed his eyelids shut.

Justice.

He cursed to himself.

He could not deny that very much of what had kept him alive between Kirkwall and the Keep was Justice. Anders thought himself paranoid but the spirit within him had clued him into threats, whether direct or indirect, that Anders would never have seen, never have heard, until it was too last. Unfortunately, Justice saw all threats as punishable violations. At first, Anders was strong enough to fight the spirit back down inside of himself, or reason with it in the cases when it seemed like reasoning was in order. They were running, he would tell himself, they couldn't just go around slaughtering travellers who had not yet caught sight of them because they might be recognized, or might meet up farther down on the road. All they had to do was leave the road and they were safe.

That was at first.

After speaking internally no longer worked, Anders tried saying it out loud. The grimness of the situation was not lost on him - a lone mage, persecuted for what most people would see as an irrational, violent action, was now wandering, running, speaking to the creature that inhabited him; if he were not the abomination everyone thought him, surely he was mad.

And then Anders body grew weaker, his mind became more tired, more weary from the Blight, Justice became restless within his weakened host, and Anders could not stop him. He would lose periods of hours, sometimes days; he would feel like he was fainting and would come to later with only a vague recollection of what he had done. The shorter the outburst, the more he remembered, but there were times when he would try to fix his new location and find he had travelled miles, or dozens of miles, and almost always in the right direction, but with no memory of the terrain between. He would regain his senses exhausted, paralyzed by thirst, whispers hustling his memories and whether they were remnants of Justice as he faded back into submission or the Calling breaking through his weakened mental faculties, Anders couldn't say. He would crawl on hands and knees to drink from whatever filthy stream he could find; eat bruised and rotten fruit from the bases of trees he would then sleep under.

If he had been able to take a ship, it would have taken him weeks. A month, at most.

But even if he could find safe passage on a ship with people who either were too ignorant to know his face (unlikely at best) or with people who shared his sympathies (almost as unlikely), the odds of everyone else aboard the vessel tolerating him, or of him being able to hide for the length of such a voyage - well, there were two many variables. He could trust his own two feet, even if it meant travelling half of Thedas to do it.

The problem was that there were two other feet that had different ideas.

Anders pressed the heels of his hands to his eyes, pushed his fingers back into his hair. He'd lost the small ribbon that Mahariel had given him somewhere in the sheets, and his newly-shorn hair hung about his ears and chin. Letting his hands rest on the back of his neck, he tried only to breath. He felt his thinness. His chin and nose seemed over-sharp, his lips drawn and dry. But the resting creature beside him had taken him in - again - and cleaned him up and filled his belly and saved his life. He didn't know how many times over he owed her, owed her his life, really, but he knew that with the blackness that gilded his skin he would never be able to return the favors. She knew it, too; couldn't not know it. And still she lie next to him, fast asleep.

He wanted to wake her. Wanted to tell her this. Instead, he leaned back against the headboard, tucked the pillow under the small of his back, and rested, still as he could be, quieting his thoughts before the rising of the sun.


	12. She Said It with Affection

Fenris did not want to return to Vigil's Keep. He paced the woods and hills, anxious in the quiet that surrounded him.

He was naive.

Mahariel's feelings for the mage were confused by time and distance, but they remained, and he had known this. He had preceded them by a single day, and for what? He had gotten the answer he sought, the answer he already knew. But he had come here anyway, all this way, to see her.

He had come here to see her.

* * *

"I seem to have this habit of waking up in bed with you," Anders said quietly as Mahariel stretched the sleep out of her limbs.

Sitting up, she replied, "Are you complaining?"

"I would never."

He looked better this morning, she noticed. There was some color back in his cheeks. Not the ruddy warmth she remembered, but color nevertheless. Mahariel sat up slowly, reached for Anders' arm, pulled it over her own shoulder, and propped herself up against his side.

"Well, now," he said. He ran his fingers over her shoulder, less boney than he remembered it, slipped his hand under her arm and held her around the waist.

"You came all this way," she affirmed.

"Well, if we're fair, I didn't have much choice."

"Are you always such a smart ass?" But she said it with affection, because she knew the answer.

He only smiled and pushed a thin cheek against the top of her head, and let himself rest there a while.

* * *

There was a soft rap at the outermost door to Mahariel's chamber. She looked up at Anders and he nodded, untangling his fingers from hers, and she slid out of bed, padding barefoot out of the bedroom and through the study to the door. Her hair was in tangles and she roughly worked her fingers through it with one hand, reaching for the doorknob with the other.

Fenris was on the other side, a firmness in his posture. His eyes met hers at first, then flicked to her feet, then back to her eyes. It was a subtle action that Mahariel knew didn't spell any good news. She stepped into the hall and pulled the door mostly shut.

"Fenris, good morning," she said uneasily.

"Ah," he began, looking to the floor again. "I… should be taking my leave."

Mahariel ran a fingernail up and down in the crease between her cheek and nose. Words did not come easily. A part of her did not want him to leave; though she hardly knew the elf, with Anders in his current condition, Fenris felt almost like something stable. But that was selfish, and she was painfully aware of that. If Mahariel was honest about anything, it was her own shortcomings. Perhaps it was good trait in the times when she had needed to remain grounded, but at the present moment, the ground felt so low. She couldn't tell him to stay. It would be painful for everyone, and pointless, moreover.

Fenris took her silence as dismissal, and began to walk past her, to walk away. She reached out gently for his wrist, to wish him goodbye, but his gaze met hers again and before she could draw breath, his lips were on hers, pushing her against the wall, his hands on either side of her

She did want it, wanted to feel him against her and more, but she knew she didn't want it in the same way, for the same reason, that he did, and Mahariel turned her face away, their foreheads pressed together still.

She could feel his heart thumping in his chest, could feel the quickness of his breath. All she wanted was physical closeness, to fill some base need. And from his glancing gazes, she saw that he did not share this sentiment.

"Lyna, I -"

"No," she stopped him. "No, Fenris. Not like this."

She felt him shudder with his next inhale and he drew himself away.

He closed his eyes and let his arms fall to his sides. "I know. Forgive me." His fingers clenched into fists, then released, then clenched again. His jaw worked restlessly, clenching and releasing as his teeth ground. A growl rose up in his throw and he swung, throwing a punch into the hallway wall opposite Mahariel.

And then he was still, and it was so quiet she could hear him swallow.

He let his fist lower, and Mahariel saw the blood on the grey stone and on his hand. She reached out for it, but he pushed her away, backing up.

"Don't." It was a command. The spell was broken.

"I'm sorry," she breathed, afraid, not for herself, but for him.

"Sorry," he said back softly, but not gentle. "Sorry," he said it again, louder this time, and through his teeth. "No. Apologize for nothing," and the tone of his voice was an indictment, but only of himself. "I came here looking for an answer. A good excuse. And you freely gave that answer and I should have left it at that." His voice was rising. "But it was an excuse. The search for truth. I knew the truth. Maybe I told myself I wanted to accuse you," he pointed, and his words came like punches, "but I have only myself to blame. I felt something in Kirkwall -"

"Fenris -"

"No!" he shouted, whipping his head up to look her in the eyes. "No. Let me finish."

"There was something in my heart - for Hawke. And you tended it. Damn you, Lyna, you made me think I -" he choked, cutting himself off. "Hawke. Hawke said he wanted… but he sided with _him_ ," Fenris spat, pointing toward Mahariel's room, his voice still growing louder. " _You_ sided with him."

" I had -"

"I know!" he spat. "But I had _already_ known that. You betrayed nothing," he softened. "You were only ever true to… to what you believed." She heard him suck breath in through the sides of his mouth, past his clenched teeth. "And I thought that honesty… that truth…" He bared his teeth uneasily, uncomfortable, it seemed, in his own flesh. "I came here to see you. That's obvious to me now. You gave me your answers. You gave me yourself. And still…" He pushed his fists together, smearing blood as knuckles cracked.

"I thought I could love you," his eyelids flickered, searching as he spoke. "Unfortunately, I was right. I just wished…"

Mahariel reached up slowly, fingertips barely brushing the side of his face. Her lips were pressed thin, tears threatened to spill over, and she shook her head no.

He slapped her hand away. She yelped in surprise, bringing her fingers to her lips.

"You don't think I know that! Do you think that I don't see?" He was louder than before, the reality of the denial hitting him as Mahariel nearly said the words out loud. She didn't love him. She never meant to love him.

"Fenris, keep your voice down," and Mahariel's eyes swept the hall.

"I will not!" he stabbed a bloody to her chest, but as soon as the words left his lips, he faltered, hand going slack, jaw hanging a bit. He shut his eyes. Mahariel relented, touching his fingertips with her own, forgiving, and he let her. "No… You're right, I -"

But something had already stirred. His voice had carried, the sound of Mahariel's startled gasp had rung through the walls. Her study door swung open.

"You will not harm her," a voice demanded.

And it was not Anders, but Justice.


	13. Or Shall I Call You Justice

She had never seen him this way before. He seemed to stand impossibly tall, radiating a harsh, unforgiving light, and yet he was dark and almost punishing to look upon. His skin split, letting the spirit within his worldly body out, and his eyes burned into her. He contained multitudes.

Fenris withdrew his hand from Mahariel, and narrowed his eyes to slits.

"Mage," he cautioned, stepping in front of Mahariel as though to protect her, though she was more than capable of defending herself and he knew it.

"I am no mage," the voice inside of Anders boomed.

"Well, that's a pleasant surprise," Fenris snapped under his breath.

"Fenris," Mahariel cautioned. She had almost no doubt that Fenris and she could take the mage down in combat, but unarmed? And even still, at what cost? Surely any damage Anders incurred in this state would remain once the spirit subsided, and with Anders' body already frail, weak…

Though she had to admit, he certainly didn't seem frail now.

"Anders…?" Mahariel said gently, "Or shall I call you Justice?" Truth be told, she didn't know what to do, or if there was any way Anders - Justice? - could be talked down. This was new to her. She had known, only after he had reluctantly confessed to her what he - they? - had done, in a fit of tears. She had never met Justice, never seen him exposed like this. He didn't seem like an abomination - and Mahariel had seen abominations - but this man, this form, this thing was certainly no long just Anders, if it was indeed Anders at all.

"I'm… I'm all right, okay? Everything is fine." She stepped out from behind Fenris' protective stance, to show the man, the spirit, that she was not afraid, and that she was not in danger. The hallway, though wide, meant for many more people to pass through than currently occupied it, suddenly felt cramped, crowded. Justice's very presence seemed to take up more physical space than the bounds of Anders' body. Mahariel had to take deep breaths to keep breathing. The air felt dense, electrified, like the hot, heavy air before a storm.

Mahariel heard footsteps at the end of the hall. Her eyes darted to the staircase and under her breath she muttered, "Oh, no, not now." Louder, she called, "Anissa? Is that you?"

"Delia, Arlessa," she heard the young mage's voice come haltingly.

"Delia, my dear? Turn around, do you understand?"

A crackle of energy whipped through the air."

"...Do you need assistance, Lady Mahariel?"

"Don't do this, mage," Fenris growled, as Justice focused on the voice coming from the stairs, Delia's form blessedly still out of sight.

"No, Delia," she called, but she turned to look at Justice, to refocus his attention on her. If anyone was going to be his target, it would be Mahariel. He was her problem, no one else's. "We're fine here. We're all fine," she emphasized, daring to take a step forward, towards the glowing figure. "Aren't we, Fenris?"

"Just splendid," he hissed.

"If… if you're certain, my lady…"

"Go back downstairs, my dear."

And the footsteps descended once more.

"Thank the Maker," she exhaled. The last thing she needed was to frighten her whole keep, thinking that she was harboring an abomination. Apostates she could get away with, this was her damned arling. But this…

"Lyna, do something," Fenris urged.

"What do you want me to do, Fenris?" she whipped around and whispered.

He shot her a look that said, "I warned you," and he had. He'd warned her before Anders himself had even fessed up. He'd done it out of spite, to be sure, but he'd warned her.

Seething, not thinking, she spat, "Oh fuck you," stabbing in his direction with her index finger.

She realised her mistake, but it was too late. Justice lashed out at Fenris through Anders with a ball of flame, which just missed the elf, blessedly quick on his feed, and dissipated against the cold stone wall.

"Anders, no!" Mahariel shouted and reached out, grabbing the mage's - the spirit's - extended arm.

Justice's eyes shifted from Fenris to Mahariel, but her eyes met his, firm, stern, and she insisted, with all of the power in her lungs, "You will _not_!" She yanked his hand from where it had been aimed and pressed it over her heart. Softly this time, she confirmed, "You will not."

There was a quieting, and a tremor seemed to pass over Justice. His eyebrows knitted, mouth twitched, and then there was a sensation like all the air was sucked from the hallway, the tenseness, heaviness, evaporating in a flash.

Anders collapsed heavily on the stone, Mahariel catching him under his arms the moment before his head hit the floor.

"Anders?" she said, but there was no response. She laid him down heavily in the doorframe and sighed, standing up, palms flat on her back, and stretching. "Maker's breath," she moaned.

"That?" Fenris said hatefully, pointing harshly at Anders' prone form on the ground, "That is your problem." And he stalked off, not towards the Keep's door, but back toward his room.

She wanted to smack him. She wanted to punch him right in his throat.

Her mouth twisted itself into a smile.


	14. She Had Had Far Too Much

Mahariel hauled Anders back into bed. She was no slouch and much of her strength remained, but he was more than a foot taller than her, and even with his slender form it was a struggle to carry him through the study. But she got him there and laid his head gently on a pillow and undid the neck of his robes so that he could breathe - his skin was hot now, almost painfully so - and pulled a thin blanket up to his waist.

She pulled the bedroom door shut, pulled closed her chamber door, and walked purposefully down the hallway to Fenris' room. She knocked, and he answered, which was more than she had expected from him.

"Look," she started, "I know what just happened."

"I -"

"I mean before that. With… I mean… about…" She cleared her throat. "I am going to get very, very drunk now. I thought I would extend the invitation."

Fenris worked his jaw back and forth, looking her up and down. Lifting an eyebrow, his face softened. "I accept your invitation."

* * *

Too much.

She had had far too much to drink.

And so had he, judging by the way his foot brushed not-at-all-unintentionally up against hers underneath the table.

They sat in the large dining room, used only on special occasions or upon the arrival of visiting dignitaries. Needless to say, it wasn't used very often, and was quiet and dark despite the hour of the day. There were small windows, but there were more heavy, dark tapestries and dark carpet and wood.

And there was dark bread dark wine and dark beer and even more empty bottles of dark glass. A few candles guttered in the middle of the table which seemed miles away from where Mahariel sat at the head and Fenris sat just beside her around the edge of the surface.

And in the dark, Mahariel asked, or said, "You aren't seriously playing fucking footsie with me."

Fenris took another slug of wine from a half-full bottle and insisted, "Oh, but I am."

"Excuse me," Mahariel interrupted, but it sounded more like "eskewmi," "do you not remember the screaming fight we just had?" And she pointed up, to indicate the upper levels of the Keep, "The one where we basically summoned a spirit because you got all pissy?"

"That's why I'm drinking."

"Because you almost got your ass lit on fire?"

"Because I'm trying to forget."

Mahariel closed her mouth, then opened it again to swallow a long gulp of rich beer from a stone mug. Fenris did not remove his foot, but slid it further up Mahariel's leg. She wanted to object, but instead she laid her cheek down on the cold wood of the table.

"I feel like I may say some things that I'll regret," she confessed to the mahogany grain.

"I feel like I already have," and he tipped his head to look her in the eyes.

"It's okay," she insisted, picking her face up again.

"Is it," he asked, but there was no inflection to indicate that he wanted a response.

"It is." She swallowed, and tried to clear her mind. "I would rather you be honest with me. I would rather everyone be honest with everyone, but the Maker would be more likely to pick me as his new bride before that ever happened, so I'll stick with honesty from the people I care about."

"Just like Anders was honest with you?" he ventured.

"Fuck you, Fenris." She extended her fist and punched him in the chest with all of the force of a sheet of paper fluttering to the ground. He took her curled fingers and brought them to his mouth, kissing each of her knuckles in turn as he teased, "I'm just being honest."

She pulled her hand back from him.

"Fine," he said, but not before taking another long, lingering tug on the bottle, draining it entirely. "You want honest? I think your boyfriend is a psychopath. A mass-murdering psychopath, but if we're all being _honest_ I don't think you nor I have any room to criticise a single other person for mass-murder. I think he's an abomination. I don't care if it's a spirit or a demon, you have proof he can't control himself. He would have killed us both if he thought we had committed some more serious infraction. And even when he can control himself I think he's made some poor fucking life-choices, as our dwarf friend would say. And I think," and Fenris uncorked another bottle of wine, pointing vaguely at Mahariel with the neck, "I think you're too fucking good for him."

"Oh, spare me the -"

"No. I don't mean like that," he defended himself. "You're the fucking Hero of Ferelden, Lyna. You're a fucking savior, and all he wants to be is a martyr. Tell me that's right." He drank again, and spat with finality, "Fuck Anders. And fuck Justice. Even if you're right and the mages are being oppressed or abused, that asshole isn't the one to save them. You've already done a better job of that than that abomination ever will. Fuck him." He leaned back in his chair and lifted the bottle to his lips, and said into it, "Honest enough for you?"

Mahariel sat, looking at her hands, pushing back the cuticles of one thumb with the nail of the other. Her lips were pressed flat.

Fenris grew quiet. He set down his bottle. He had already retracted his foot from Mahariel's leg but now he drew himself up more in his chair. He wasn't sorry, and wouldn't apologize, but the silence between them now was hard. Harder than before.

He should have just left. Shouldn't have bared himself to her - it made him want to stay, and now he almost felt some sick obligation to keep her safe from whatever Anders had become. He should have gone when he said he was going. But now he was here, and she was quiet.

"Lyna…"

"You're not wrong, Fenris."

He picked up his head immediately.

"You think I don't know those things?" She poured a fresh bottle of beer into her mug and said, "I don't know that'll I'll go along with your choice of words. And I know you don't mean it 'like that' when you say he's not good enough. I don't care about that. I know what he did with Justice was wrong. I don't like - no, I hate it. Now that I've seen it, I hate it. He can't control himself. He's hurt a lot of people and he doesn't take the diplomatic way into or out of situations. He never has. He's always been a smart-ass who thought he knew better from the day an army of templars on this very doorstep looking for him. And it almost got him killed then and it'll probably be what gets him killed eventually, assuming he lives long enough to make it out of here. No," she said, cutting Fenris off before he could get the words out, "no I don't think he'll stay this time, either. Not if he's strong enough to leave."

Fenris rubbed his palm with his thumb. "Then… why?"

She shook her head, looking into her lap. "I don't know. Lots of reasons. We went through hell together. And he was there for me, a lot. He's selfish - I know that. But he counts his friends within his circle of selfishness. Mostly. And… I guess…" But she trailed off.

Fenris looked at her, unfocused eyes urging her on.

Mahariel mumbled something under her breath.

"Hm?"

"I said, I believe in what he's doing."

"You've completely lost it, Warden Commander."

She scratched her scalp with her nails, picked at them then with her thumb. "I know. That's why I'm still alive."

Fenris bit his bottom lip, full like a ripe fruit. A redness came to Mahariel's cheeks.

"Come on," she said, bringing the mug to her lips again. "I'm not drunk enough yet."

"Do you love him?"

She didn't even take the cup away from her mouth. "I'm really not drunk enough yet."

Fenris scratched his eyebrow, reasoning, "You defended him. You admitted his faults. You say you believe in him. Fine. I won't argue that with you. Do you love him?"

She drank, long and deep and slammed the mug down on the table. "And if I don't, then what, I'm just going to throw myself into your arms and you'll carry me off into the sunset? What, Fenris?"

"You don't, do you?"

"Stop it."

"I'm not asking for me."

She shot him a look.

"I swear to you." He put his hands flat on the table and leaned in close to her. "I accept what you told me upstairs." His words were slow now, mushy. "I don't want to. But I do. I want to know honestly: do - how -"

She shook her head. "I don't know. Please, Fenris. I don't. I'm - I'm trying to figure it out. I did. By the love of Andraste, I did. I…" Her face contorted and her eyes were wet.

"Don't," he dared to brush his thumb to her cheek, wiping away the start of a tear. "Don't do that."

So she didn't. Instead, she pushed her own thin lips to his full, ripe ones, her pale hands in his silver hair.

He didn't stop her, but when they broke away for breath, he sighed against her cheek, "Is this -"

"Fenris. Hush."

He did, reaching out, and, strong hands on her waist, pulled her onto his lap, fingers digging into the fabric of her thin shift, pressing into her skin. She tore away from his mouth and gasped his name. Freeing only one hand from her body, he reached up, thrusting his fingers into her hair, and brought their lips together again. He could feel her moan. Breaking away, he kissed her neck, the soft, hidden places behind her tapered ears, nipped at the long, thin lines of her fading vallaslin.

"Oh, Maker," she tipped her head back and he pressed his mouth to the now exposed skin of her chest, the places where thin fingers of ribs showed through just below her collar bones.

"I need you," he growled against her heart.

"You have me," she answered.


	15. She Sat Up and Laughed

A cool twilight settled in through the windows, and the candles had died some time ago. Fenris could only see the outline of Mahariel's face, so he looked toward the beams in the ceiling when he said, "I really should be going."

She sat up and laughed, running fingers down the lines of lyrium on his belly, silvery lines that reflected the dim light.

He groaned. "I don't even care that you won't love me."

"Maybe it's better this way."

"I don't -"

"Oh hush," and she kissed his ribs, the supple curve of his belly.

There was a knock at the heavy dining hall door.

"Shit," he groaned.

Shaking out her hair, Mahariel reached for her undergarments, pulling them on swiftly as she called to the door, "One moment." She put on her shift, the same one she'd slept in. What a day, she thought to herself, and padded to the door, pulling it open only far enough to see face-to-face with whomever was requesting her. "Yes?"

It was Anissa. "Your, er…"

"Anders?"

"He's asking for you."

"Alright. Thank you, Anissa."

The young woman bowed and turned away from the door. Mahariel pulled it shut again. Once it was closed, Mahariel sighed. She felt guilty now, and she felt afraid to look Anders in the eye. Less because of what she had done with Fenris, and more because of what he had down with Justice.

Fenris had stood, and was dressing. "Go to him," he said.

"Are you really leaving?"

His silence was an uncertain response.

"Well, let me know, that's all I ask."

Mahariel briskly left the room, leaving Fenris half-dressed in the dark, clutching his hand to his chest.


	16. She Dismissed Him

She returned to Anders, who was pacing anxiously between the study and the bedroom. He look wan again, nervous.

"Hey, you," she said softly. "I'm sorry, I -"

"What happened?" he demanded.

"What?" she blurted, taken aback.

"I don't - I don't remember what happened. You went to the door. I heard voices. And I - I don't remember. I just woke up. Back in bed. I didn't - I didn't sleep, I -"

"Anders, calm down. Everything's alright." She took his hands in hers.

"But I," his eyelids flicked quickly as his brain tried to sort out his confusion. "He… did he…"

"Justice."

Anders closed his eyes, lips parting slightly. He shook his head and pulled his hands away from hers. "I never wanted you to see that."

"I…" Mahariel started, but stopped herself. She didn't want to say that it had been alright. It hadn't. Nothing had happened, to be sure, no one had been harmed. But it didn't have to have ended up that way. "There's nothing that can be done now," she said instead, and that was true, and there was no point in dwelling on it.

"Lyna, forgive me."

She remained quiet.

He fixed his gaze on hers and reached out to grab her shoulders tightly. "Please, Lyna."

"There… is nothing to forgive, Anders." That was all she could offer him.

He let go of her, but not without force, and Mahariel stumbled a little as he quickly turned away, pacing once more, back and forth, back and forth, with a hand to his mouth.

Then, suddenly: "I need him out of me, Lyna."

She shook her head. "That's not… is that…"

"Possible? Yes. No. I don't know. I can't see why not."

"I assume you've already tried asking nicely."

He scowled at her briefly, until he realised she was joking, trying to be gentle with him. He had forgotten her sense of humor, her playfulness used to diffuse situations. He let a smile spread across his cracked, pale lips. "He refused," Anders returned to her.

"I expected as much." She approached him once more, put her hand on his arm, looked up into his soft brown eyes. "What can we do, Anders?"

"...There might be something." He took a thin hand and cupped the thin bone of her jaw, ran his thumb along her cheek. Then, without warning, he squeezed his eyes shut drew his hand up into his chest, and broke away from her grip, turning away. He swore under his breath.

"Anders? What is it? Are you alright?"

"Maker have mercy," he said quietly. "I can't ask you to do this again."

"You can ask anything of me. You know that." She reached out and touched his back. "I don't have to say yes. But don't think that I won't. And this… if we can do this…"

"We? Mahariel, we?" He sucked in a deep breath and held it. "How long have we really known each other, Lyna?"

"Years, Anders, you know that. More than a decade."

"I met you more than a decade ago, that much is true. But I met you when I was young and scared and you were lonely and lost and raised up to something you weren't ready to be. You made me a Grey Warden to save my life because I was too stupid not to be stupid. And you've saved my life half a hundred times since then, but in what time? Barely two years. I've been in your life consistently - if you can call it that - for barely two years. And every single time," he emphasized each word with a harsh point of his index finger, "I put you in a position where you're forced to do something drastic to save me from myself."

Mahariel pressed her lips thin and looked at the floor. "What are you saying, Anders?"

"I'm saying, how can you do these things for me? How can you keep saving me? How could you have ever told me that you loved me when you barely know me? When I barely even know myself?" He staggered away from her and propped himself up against the doorframe, cheek pressed against the cool wooden wall. "Because I'm telling you this, Lyna. If you were me and I were you, I never would. Not even the once."

Mahariel ran her tongue over her lips and closed her eyes. She began to walk away. "Get some rest, Anders. You're tired," she dismissed him, and left him alone again in her quarters.


	17. She Cursed Herself

She headed down to the servant's area to wash up and get fresh clothes. She didn't want to do it in her room. She wasn't angry with the mage, but she couldn't bare to be near him right now. Not after everything he had said, and, come to think of it, everything Fenris had said. None of this information took her by surprise; she'd spent lonely night thinking on it more than she could rightly count. By this point in her life, after all that she had gone through, she considered her need to self-sacrifice an illness. She should have died any number of times, but most specifically, she could have died when she first saw the eluvian. And she lived, or was allowed to live, or, sometimes she thought, was forced to live. It wasn't like she had had much choice. So she gave herself over and over and over again, not really hoping that one time it would finally kill her, but certainly doing nothing to prevent her own demise. She ate and she slept and she walked for her health and she did her job to the best of her abilities, but when extraordinary circumstances arose - and they always did - Mahariel put herself at the frontlines every time. As far as she was concerned, at some point this extra time that had been given to her had to be taken away. Maybe by throwing herself into danger again and again and again she was pretending to have some control over it. It gave her a kind of invincibility, not caring if she died. She was already dead. It wasn't morbid, not to her. It was inevitable. She had seen so much death. She had practically seen her own. After that, consequences of any degree seemed mostly meaningless.

Was that why she kept coming to Anders' aid? He meant something to her, that much was not up for debate. She had been convinced that she loved him. Perhaps she still did, once she washed away the dust and darkness and really saw him again. Was it just the kind of person she was? Or was there more to it?

Clean of Fenris' scent, the feel of his fingers, his mouth, scrubbed from her skin, clad in a fresh blue shift, fresh grey leggings, Mahariel's head felt more clear. She almost wanted to bring the fog back. A clear head let in so many thoughts. A misty mind full of romance and pleasure and wine made things so simple. She wanted the wine, she wanted the heat. She did not want the conflict of Fenris' desire.

Standing in the laundry room, Mahariel wrapped her slender arms over the crown over her head, over her wet hair, chin touching her chest. These were not questions that had answers. These were situations, solved only by action.

Anders thought he might know a way to excise the spirit from his flesh. Surely that was worth consideration no matter what her feelings for him were.

Sometimes Mahariel wished she were a mage so that she could understand what Anders must feel when a spirit intruded upon his own personality. She didn't wish to become an abomination, but she couldn't even imagine what he went through.

But then, she had The Blight. She had thoughts, mostly only in dreams, but present nevertheless, that pushed her own self out of her mind and took over for her. Certainly that was all the closeness she needed to the situation.

But she… she had given him both.

Mahariel bit down hard on her bottom lip.

"Dirthara-ma," she cursed herself, and retreated to the library.

* * *

 _Repost from latest profile update, 07/31/15:_

Wow, guys. Very big end-of-the-month thank you, as I topped 500 views again and yesterday alone had a whopping 107. Super intense, and it definitely gives me the mojo to keep writing, which hopefully I will have more time to do lately (here is a bit of story):

I work at a library and a cafe, and previously worked for a different library. Yesterday my cafe hours were cut drastically, but right at the same time my boss from my old library texted me and asked me if I would be willing to take on a part-time position back at my old job. I, of course, told him yes, and that job offered me a lot more time to sit at a desk and write than my current one does. Long story short, I will have a lot more time to keep building this story in the very near future. The bad news is, I won't start back at my old position until about mid-month, so I'll be short a little of my expected pay. I'll also be working three jobs now to balance out the hours I will have lost. As a result, I'm asking very gently, and only if you're very able, that if you really enjoy what you're reading here, to please maybe **help an author out via her**. For this honor, **I will work a character or suggestion of yours into Vigilant**. If that's something you're interested in, you can use the email **paperclippe** to do that. Even five dollars here and there can really make a big difference to someone who is used to making tips and will be seeing a lot less of them in the future.

Thanks again guys, for the help if you choose, and wholeheartedly for the views and reviews you've already left. It means a great deal to me, really.


	18. She Began to Laugh

"Delia, can I speak with you?"

Mahariel leaned up against a case of books taller than herself. She'd always loved the library, but in the same way, felt intimidated by it. She brought books to her chambers when she had the time to read - which wasn't as much as she would have liked, and which she should have made more time for - but she'd never just sat down at the long table here, or in one of the chairs in the alcoves where the stacks ended, breathing in the knowledge of eons. There were secrets here between these pages, and Mahariel felt as though she'd had quite enough secrets for one lifetime. Just the ones she had held close to her own heart were overwhelming.

Though, divulging them was always harder.

Delia stood and waved her hand gracefully over the small lamp she was reading by. The lamp seemed to increase in both lightness and warmth. Veilfire wasn't often used for such common purposes in Ferelden, and certainly not here in the Keep, but if there was one room where a torch or oil lamp would not have been welcome, it would have been here, among a large collection of singular and ancient texts. Even still, Mahariel smiled warily at the magical lamp, for though the light lit the room in a warm tone, a greenness lingered along its edges and made her feel uneasy. It reminded her of old, forgotten runes, places dark and deep.

"Always, Lady Arlessa."

She sat and said, "Please. It's Mahariel."

"Mahariel," Delia confirmed, and sat once more, pushing the veilfire to a more central location on the table. "Of course. What can I do for you?"

Mahariel began by taking a halting breath, and steepled her fingers in front of her on the table. She paused, and then began, "You know, I don't know very much about you, Delia."

Delia smiled, and for the coldness of the flame she lit, her smile was nothing short of radiant. She was a beautiful young woman, with soft, curling white-blonde hair and deep hazel eyes. Soft freckles dotted her cheeks, just along their highest ridge and across her nose, and they most likely made her look much younger than she was, as for the first time, Mahariel noticed thin crow's feet just along Delia's eyelids.

"There isn't much to know, I'm afraid. I was sent to Kinloch Hold just before my seventh birthday. I spent most of my life there until… Well, you would know, wouldn't you. And then I was sent to Kirkwall - I had family there, which is why I decided against the White Spire," she paused and added, under her breath, "Not that I ever got to see my family, as, well… I'm sure you know about that as well," she cleared her throat, "but, and, well, I'll just… The Mage Underground… I escaped - look, I don't want to lie to you, Arlessa, and I'm sure that you must know all of this -"

Mahariel did know all of this. She also knew that Delia had studied spirit magic, and had been retained in The Gallows partly out of fear that she herself was an abomination, or at least consorting with spirits and performing blood magic. Putting aside the fact that all of those accusations were entirely subjective, Mahariel thought as she remembered Wynne, dear Wynne, they were also entirely untrue from any perspective that had a handle on the truth. Delia studied The Fade. Delia spoke with its inhabitants. Delia had never once done blood magic and was certainly not possessed of anything other than a strong sense of her own right to personal freedoms. And Mahariel had no reason to doubt her sources.

"Delia, all are welcome here. You should know that. You've never done anything to harm anyone in the Keep, and -" Mahariel paused. "You escaped the Gallows." She smiled broadly and before she could help it, she began to laugh. "You escaped the Gallows!"

"Lady… I… I mean, Mahariel?"

"I came here for a reason today, Delia. I have a favor to ask you, and I have someone I want you to meet. These things…" Mahariel stood, and pushed her chair out with the backs of her legs, "...seem to be related."


	19. And What of Justice

Delia followed at Mahariel's feet up to her quarters, remembering the awkward conversation she had had with the Arlessa and - how many others? She didn't even know - on the staircase. She made a note to ask Mahariel about it at a more opportune time. For now, her curiosity had the better of her anyway: a strange favor and a strange meeting? Delia was intrigued.

Mahariel kept her arms crossed in front of her, rubbing the tops of her arms every now and again as she walked. She knew what she was doing was necessary, and she knew she could trust those that had come to the Keep - especially Delia, she felt, now that she knew how Delia had come to be in Mahariel's employ - but the thought of divulging Anders' secret to someone, anyone, felt like betrayal.

And what of Justice?

It was a question Mahariel suddenly felt she hadn't properly considered. She had known Justice only as the virtuous spirit that she had encountered in the Fade, a spirit who had become trapped inside the body of a deceased Grey Warden called Kristoff. And now he was trapped inside the body of a living Grey Warden, and somehow, Justice had become warped into something else. The spirit Mahariel had known as Justice was not gentle, certainly, but he would have never acted out of hate or in haste or with malice. This new Justice was something terrible, something vengeful. This kind of Justice sought retribution at any cost. To rid it from Anders might mean the destruction of the spirit, but if it meant a better Anders, an Anders in control, she couldn't help but think that the loss of the spirit was worth it. If it even had to be lost; perhaps Justice could be sent back to the Fade some how. Perhaps it could become itself once again.

Mahariel cleared her head and opened the door to her rooms, whispering behind to Delia, "Wait just a moment."

Delia nodded obediently, and Mahariel pressed inside, pulling the door shut behind herself.


	20. She Called into the Quiet

"Anders?" she called into the quiet.

He turned over in bed. She could hear the squeak of the bed frame, the rustle of the soft down mattress. She couldn't tell if he were actually asleep, however, or just ignoring her after their argument. Perhaps, she thought, she should have waited to bring Delia to Anders' bedside; if he was still stewing, Anders was not the sort to put aside his grudge just because company came to call. Quietly, Mahariel padded into the bedroom.

Anders had the covers pulled up to his chin, his face flushed with sleep. His eyes were full of drowsy sand, but he was awake, if just barely.

"You came back," he said dully.

Perhaps Mahariel had been right, she thought to herself. Perhaps Anders had just been tired, and scary, and, well, grumpy, frankly.

She leaned down and pressed her lips to his forehead. "Of course I did. I live here."

This time, her humor made him smile.

"I'm going to ask you something," Mahariel prefaced, and Anders propped himself up on his elbow slowly, "but before I do, are you okay? Do you need anything to eat or drink? How do you feel?"

"I'm alright," he answered like a tired child, a lock of strawberry blonde hair falling into his face, "ask away."

"I thought about what you said. About Justice," she said softly, to see if that might catch his interest, and it did. His eyes lit up and his gaze fixed firmly on hers.

"I apologize for my words earlier. I know that you would do these things for me - for anyone - without behest." He forced himself into a sitting position and slung his legs over the side of the bed. Mahariel knelt to meet his gaze and he took her hands. "As awful as it makes me feel to ask, I will never turn away your help. I should know that about you by now, I think. I was out of line."

And she bent forward on her knees, and gently pressed her lips to his.

A flush grew on his cheeks, not at all like the flush of sleep that he had just shed upon waking, but like a child who feels embarrassment at the first stirrings of an emotion he has not yet had the pleasure of identifying.

And she felt it too. It was small, just a seed of a former emotion, but it was a seed that lodged itself in the black places of her heart and threatened to grow. It reminded her of who they used to be together, however briefly.

"I hope then," she said, deflecting her eyes to the ground, "that you won't mind if I've called in some reinforcements."

He stalled, and his grip on her hands weakened, but did not let go. Nevertheless, Mahariel jumped back in. "I haven't told her anything yet. She doesn't have to know. I think, however, you'd like to meet her either way. The Mage Underground helped her to escape from The Gallows."

Anders mouth trembled gently, and at first Mahariel didn't know if he might be angry with her, but his face split into a smile.

"Lyna. You're something else entirely."

"Shall I let her in?"

Anders acquiesced, and Mahariel went to the door.

"He'll see you," she said, and led Delia inside. Delia followed quietly, soft slippers making almost as little noise on the hardwood as Mahariel's bare feet. Leading Delia into the bedroom, Mahariel nodded to Anders and he stood and offered his hand to the stranger, who took it and shook.

"Delia, I believe you and Anders met briefly, or, I should say, you met Anders who probably has no recollection of the event."

Anders smiled shyly and nodded, and Delia offered, "I'm glad to see you're feeling better."

"Much," he said, and seemed to straighten up, to show Delia the fruits of her efforts. "Mahariel tells me that you escaped from The Gallows with help from our Mage Underground."

Delia paused. "Our…" The Mage Underground had operated in Kirkwall for years - how many was hard to say, since no records were kept due to its clandestine nature, and the charge had not always been Anders, nor had their always been a charge; for periods it was just a loose collection of Kirkwall's citizens, both high and low born, who knew that The Gallows was nothing more than a prison and sought to set its inmates free. Anders took it and shaped it into something of a well-oiled machine; though nothing could stop Meredith Stannard and her unquestioning templar army, and after some years under his supervision, it was effectively disbanded. And what was Anders to do? Nothing. He was already risking so much by offering all the help that he had done. To overstep that boundary would be to push himself into Meredith's open arms with a signed confession, and he was even less good to any escaping apostates dead. Other mages were freed, but there was no mechanism in place to get them out. They were very nearly on their own.

And now, well now, for better or worse, there wasn't much need for a Mage Underground, was there?

"You're Anders!" Delia exclaimed in a whisper.

Anders smiled and looked at the floor.

"I - I'm sorry, I didn't put the pieces together, I -"

"It's not an uncommon name," he said. It was not untrue, despite the fact that it was not Anders' name at all.

"Your people…" she went on breathlessly. "Without them, I might never… I might be dead. Almost certainly would be. You helped so many people," Delia extolled, "and I supported you when I heard about the Chantry."

"Well, I appreciate that. It… wasn't an easy decision, despite what most people must thing. Lyna knows that as well as I," he said, and gave Mahariel a sad, knowing smile.

Delia's eyebrows furrowed. "Lady Arlessa?"

"That," Mahariel said quickly, putting her hands on Delia's shoulders and steering her out of the room, "is a discussion for another time, Anders. Delia, why don't you give us a little more time to speak? I'll be back for you in a little while. Then perhaps we can get down to business."

Anders sad smile turned into a wry one as Delia nodded and excused herself from Mahariel's chambers, saying again to Anders as she left, "Thank you for all that you did. You were never forgotten."

Once she was gone, Anders replied, "That's rather what I was afraid of."

Mahariel sat down on the bed and Anders joined her. "Oh that's not true, is it?"

Anders shrugged. "I'm only human. Maybe I wanted recognition for what I was doing in some small way. But it's not easy to retain your freedom in the face of adversity when you're the face of the rebellion."

"At least it's a good face."

Anders grinned a bit. "So why bring her here? Just to show me that my fight was valid? Trust me, it was a welcome reminder, but I don't see…"

"She can help you, Anders."

"Lyna -"

"I haven't told her anything yet. I wanted to talk to you first."

"And that's why you wanted me to meet her."

Mahariel listed her head back and forth. "Well, no. And yes."

Anders pressed his lips together. "I appreciate the consideration. Let me think on it. I just hate the thought…"

Mahariel pressed the back of her hand to his cheek. "She'll understand. But Anders… are you sure about this?"

Anders frowned and pressed the palms of his hands against his eyes. "I want to say yes, with all my heart. But Justice has been a part of me for so long; and what will become of him if I remove him from me? But," he continued, "he's no longer what he once was. He is more Vengeance than Justice, I'm afraid. This wasn't what I wanted."

Mahariel nodded. She asked him, "Are you afraid?"

"Afraid?" Anders looked up at her. "I don't know. After all these years… I suppose I am. What will it be like to be without him?"

"Easier, I hope," she reassured him. "You'll just be you again, Anders. You won't have to worry about losing yourself to him."

"I relied on his guidance for so long…" Anders mused.

Mahariel only smiled a small smiled and leaned her head against Anders' arm. "We don't have to decide now. Think it over. Talk to Delia yourself, if you want."

"I trust you, Lyna. I wouldn't have come to you with this in the first place if I thought I couldn't." He stretched out and wrapped a thin arm around her shoulders and added softly, "I missed you."

"Believe me, Anders. I know."

He twined his fingers between hers and rubbed the top of her thumb gently with his own. "Can we… talk?"

Mahariel closed her eyes and took a deep breath.


	21. She Was Helping undo the Damage

"I… I guess I'm not even entirely sure how to begin this conversation," Anders muttered. "Maybe it was naive of me to assume that we would be picking up exactly where we left off. Not that I'm even entirely sure where we left off," he confessed. "And I can't imagine how strange all of this has been for you, and I'm certainly not making it easier, with… all… this…" He motioned toward himself with his free hand, and in that sweeping motion indicated himself, Justice, and the Blight.

"It's not that, Anders," Mahariel admitted.

"Then what?" he asked, deliberately keeping his voice soft. He didn't want to interrogate her, despite his longing for answers.

Mahariel tugged at her mouth, scratched her ear. She didn't know, and she told him so. In her head, she tried to divine it. It wasn't Fenris, as much as that was an easy excuse. It wasn't the time that they had spent apart; they'd been apart for almost a decade and had fallen back together as easily as they would have if they had let themselves the first time. But maybe Fenris had spoken truly. Maybe she felt responsible for Anders. Perhaps that was why now, after having spoken to him, spoken to Delia, she found herself growing closer to him again. She was helping undo the damage she felt she had done.

She squeezed her eyes shut. How horrible. How shallow. How meaningless.

"Mahariel?"

"I said -" she snapped, but then slowed down and paced her voice more gently; she was upset only with herself, "I said, I don't know, Anders. I want - I want…"

"Do you want me?"

"I want to want you."

Anders narrowed his eyes, but his expression was playful. "Well," he said slowly, "it's a start."

"I don't want to make you any promises Anders. But I can promise that I'll try."

"Whatever happens, happens?"

She nodded.

"That seems fair. I'll take it." He squeezed her hand in his. "Let me talk to Delia."


	22. She Had Briefly Thought

Mahariel sat on the Keep's front steps the next morning, a thin slice of brown bread in one hand, a hot cup of tea in the other. It was rich and black and warmed her which she appreciated; a cold had come on her in the night that she couldn't shake. She had lain next to Anders for part of the night, trying to find comfort in his warmth, trying to remember the form she had taken to curl against his side, but in the small hours of the morning, her thoughts kept drifting away from her, her body kept drifting away from him, and she picked herself up and sat in her desk chair, watching a candle burn down, watching the light change as it did on the papers she sorely neglected. But in the dim light, she couldn't focus on them. She promised herself she would set aside the portion of the day tomorrow - today now - when Anders took the time to speak with Delia, to actually do her job. But in the darkest hour, just before the sun climbed up over the horizon, a whisper started in Mahariel's mind. It spoke to her of ancient things, and dark places, and something rising. She shut her eyes against it, but it grew stronger. She shook herself, pinched her arms, made certain that she was awake. Was this The Calling? It had never come to her before in waking, not this vividly, coherently, clearly. Her body was cold through and through. Her skin seemed to writhe beneath her clothes. She twisted in her seat, trying to find a comfortable position, but her whole form seemed to be working against her. Through the darkness, she peered into her bedroom at Anders sleeping frame. He seemed still, undisturbed, and she wondered if he heard it took, but he seemed so at peace. She would ask him when he woke, but she would not wake him. Instead, she tore off her clothes, the garments seeming to rake against her twisting skin, and ran herself the hottest bath that she could. She settled herself there until, through the crack between the door and the wall, she could see light peeking in from the morning sun. And with that thin sliver of light, the whispers died away. She dried, dressed, and collected a simple breakfast from the kitchen; the same breakfast the servants would eat before they readied the fortress for the day. Now she sat on these stairs, nursing the hot mug of tea, slowly nibbling on the hearty, dark bread, hoping that the sun would dispel the chill.

"May I join you?"

Mahariel's lips drew upward. "By all means."

Fenris folded his thin limbs up to come to rest on the step beside her.

"I wasn't sure you'd still be here," Mahariel confessed.

"I'm not sure I want to leave," he confessed.

Mahariel gave him a look and Fenris put up his hands.

"You're more than welcome to stay," she offered, and he nodded his head, and moved on.

"How," he said, trying to swallow any untoward feelings, "is Anders?"

Mahariel took a deep breath and set her mug down on the stone step, rested the slice of bread on top. She turned to Fenris and slowly explained their plan to deal with Justice.

He remained quiet once she finished, his hands folded in his lap. Mahariel picked up her breakfast and finished it slowly, as Fenris' eyes, not at all hard, watched her curiously. Mahariel adjusted and pressed the soles of her feet together, her knee stretching and pressing against Fenris' shin. He didn't move away.

"I thought you would be pleased," Mahariel remarked, stretching further out into the sun.

"Pleased is a strong word," he replied, only half-seriously, then confessed, "I'm not sure what I am."

"To be honest, neither am I. Not because I'm afraid of the result, don't get me wrong."

"I would be, if I were you."

Mahariel paused to consider this. She had briefly thought of all the ways in which the procedure of removing a spirit from a living host - presumably with its own spirit - could go wrong, resulting in either the death of Anders or the failure of the removal or a hundred other things that Mahariel had completely constructed based on absolutely no evidence or research. But she hadn't thought of what would happen to Anders if it just… worked. She had thought he would be unchanged. Maybe more relaxed. But the last time she had spoken to Anders without Justice was more than ten years ago. It was the better part of their time together, to be sure, but it was a distant memory, intimate only in their mutual isolation.

Mahariel slumped a bit where she sat.

"I'm sorry," Fenris said. "I didn't mean anything by it. It is, perhaps, for the best."

"I'm sure it is," Mahariel conceded. It would be good for Anders (and if she were inclined to be overdramatic, good for Thedas). But there was always that chance.

"Will it be dangerous?"

"I suppose we'll find out."


	23. She Could Burn It in Effigy

Mahariel stayed true to her word and went through the papers on her desk whilst Anders met with Delia. Most everything was typical fare; taxes and wages that had already been taken care of by her treasurer and required only her signature; notifications of births and deaths and marriages, some that required a reply or other correspondence; acknowledgements of major parcels of land or wealth changing hands. There was, however, one letter in the bunch that twisted her face into a stern grimace. Lord Ladomire, a notorious magic-denouncer, requested her audience. He didn't say what about, didn't say when or where, only said that the matter was urgent and that the Arlessa had "best make herself available at her earliest convenience." The letter had been stamped by the Keep's postmaster as having arrived just yesterday.

Well, she thought to herself, her earliest convenience might be some days off, depending on how Anders meeting with Delia played out.

Unless Lord Ladomire had somehow heard that she was harboring Anders at the Keep. This would be just the sort of thing that would have him up in arms. But, Mahariel thought, that was unlikely. Word didn't travel quite that fast in Amaranthine, not even in the city proper where Ladomire kept his main residence.

Did it?

Mahariel shook her head, put it out of her mind. It was highly unlikely, and moreover, it was none of his business. She looked at the stacks of paper on her desk, now neatly arranged and sorted into piles, some of which could be stored away and kept as records, a few which must be returned, and the majority of which could be destroyed. If the weather were cool tonight, or if the chill in her bones tormented her again, she would use the fruits of her efforts in the hearth to keep herself warm against the night. She considered burning the Lord's request, but decided it would be better to keep until the situation was resolved. Then she could burn it in effigy for all anyone cared.

Mahariel gathered up the papers to be kept as records and the ones to be sent away again to take to Anissa, who would distribute them as their destination suited. After that, she decided, she would check in on Delia and Anders.


	24. There Was Silence

"There is a woman," Mahariel heard Delia say. She was on the other side of a stack of books from the mages. Mahariel hadn't meant to eavesdrop, but when she had entered the darkened room, it had been obvious that the two were deep in conversation, and Mahariel did not mean to interrupt. She'd sent down to the kitchens for some nourishment - Anders and Delia had been talking all afternoon now and Mahariel herself had had no sustenance but her meager breakfast on the steps - but until such time as it arrived, Mahariel resigned to allow the two mages to keep speaking.

"...who is doing groundbreaking research on this area of study. She was a mage at my own Circle before the tower fell. It's quite amazing; I obviously haven't been personally in touch with her, but through my own research - though if I'm honest with you, Anders," Delia lowered her voice, "it's been very little of my own research so much as it's been enthusiastic letters to old friends - I hear, and honestly I cannot verify this," she hastened to disclaim again, "that she's also been doing work with Tranquil mages… possibly restoring them."

She heard Anders' sharp intake of breath, and Mahariel used every bit of her restraint not to peer around the corner to spy on his expression. But what she heard him say was not what she was expecting.

"Is… that wise? This woman, does she know what she's doing?"

The question took Mahariel off-guard. For what reason could he be hesitant about giving the Tranquil their… well, their senses back?

"It's risky, I admit. But Wynne has been at this for a long time, as I understand it."

Wynne.

Mahariel clapped her hand to her mouth. Did Delia know? Did anyone know besides Mahariel herself?

There was a silence, and then Mahariel remembered - Anders knew Wynne too. Not as deeply, not as the wise, soft matron that Mahariel had known, had leaned on, had found warm comfort in, but briefly, and as Mahariel herself remembered, as a very different sort of person. Short. Almost cold. Very focused. Mahariel wished she had detained Wynne for a longer period than the woman's intended stay in Amaranthine, but that was over and done now. The thought of the woman had not crossed Mahariel's mind in some time, and she found herself conflicted. She was overjoyed to know that Wynne was still alive, still focused, still following her path, but confused - why wouldn't she have stayed in touch? Where was she now? And had she succeeded in splitting herself from the spirit that had harbored inside of her? Could she even and still live? But, this was the subject matter of her studies it would seem; perhaps her spirit was not as faithful as it once had been. Mahariel bit deeply into her lip. She felt wrong hiding behind the shelves any longer. Stepping into the light, Mahariel bowed quietly to the two, indicating that they should not stop their conversation on her behalf, but continue, though Anders' gaze was now fixed on Mahariel. Once she had settled into a chair next to him, he reached out and firmly gripped her hand.

"You knew Wynne once."

Mahariel frowned.

"I did, and I thought, very well."

"Did she ever mention anything about… well… about my situation?"

Delia interrupted gently. "There's no more need for euphemism, Anders. I think I speak for the both of us," she indicated herself and Mahariel, "when I say that no one here holds you at fault for your plight."

Mahariel rolled her eyes a bit. Well, that wasn't necessarily true, or else she wouldn't have had reason to agree to remove Justice from Anders' earthly vessel. But they were in fact beyond flowery language.

And of course Wynne had mentioned Anders' situation. She shared it. But did she break Wynne's trust? Would the woman understand? Mahariel had to take that risk.

She turned to Anders and said, "It was Faith."

He didn't understand, and shook his head.

"Wynne, too, accepted a spirit into herself. Wynne was on the verge of death when Kinloch Hold was falling. She gave herself to save the lives of younger mages than she, and a spirit of Faith saw her deed, and opened its arms to Wynne, and filled her, and kept her alive. Still keeps her alive, I presume."

There was silence.

Anders opened his mouth but no words came out. His face, however, grew dark.

"You knew this? How long?" His voice was soft but sharp.

"A dozen years, perhaps." She made no pretensions about it.

"You knew this, and yet you…"

"Did nothing? Supported you? Kept a secret for a friend who trusted me?" Mahariel was in no mood. "I expressed only the same concern for you that you expressed yourself, Anders."

He stood. "That night in the Hanged Man - you - you…"

"I got angry. I did."

Delia slid back from the table and Mahariel sensed her anxiety.

"Anders, perhaps we should…"

He gritted his teeth, and his face looked wan in the dim light, as sick again as he was when he arrived on Mahariel's doorstep. "Fine."

"Delia," Mahariel said calmly, "this will not be a long conversation I assure you. But your line of research is valid - I apologize, I overheard you through the stacks, more than perhaps you had thought - and I want you to continue it regardless. And if you can, if you have friends who might be able to, do you think you could get in touch with Wynne for me?"

"I - I'll give it a try, Arlessa. And thank you…"

"Of course. Let's go, Anders."

As soon as they were out of the library, Anders began shouting.

"How dare you!"

Mahariel leaned against the wall and let herself slacken. She could almost have predicted this response from him, right down to the literal finger-pointing which he now employed. "How dare you chastise for my actions when you became the Hero of Ferelden alongside another abomination?"

"Is that what you are, Anders? An abomination?"

He didn't answer, only seethed.

"Anders, please. I'm trying to help you. If I reacted wrongly it was because I was afraid. For you, of you, both of those things, I don't know. But that was years ago. We've moved on, haven't we? Please. I am trying to help."

The rage on his face subsided, but he didn't yet speak. He was always quick to anger, slow to cool, and while it made him an excellent advocate for the people he fought for, it could be exhausting. Mahariel already wanted to put her head in her hands and call it a day, but she pressed on.

"I didn't tell you about Wynne because she asked me to keep her secret, and because I didn't know if she was even still alive. I didn't want to use her to tell you it would be okay because I didn't know if it were. If she were. I'm glad that she is. I'm glad that maybe she can help us." She didn't mention that Wynne had only even made her bargain because she was on the verge of death. That the spirit had implored Wynne.

Anders lowered his eyes. "I just wish that I had known."

"Would it have made a difference?"

"Perhaps. Perhaps not. I might have felt more validated."

"Since when have you relied on the experiences of others to validate your own choices? Would it have changed your mind? Would it have changed anything?"

He shook his head. "No, you're right. I just can't believe…"

"Oh, trust me, Anders. Neither can I."


	25. She Would Be Lying

"But how many then must there be? Might people not even know?" Delia asked Mahariel.

Mahariel shrugged. "You both have the upper hand here. I only know of magic what I've seen. Anders, you'd done all the legwork and your research will be invaluable to us, I'm sure, Delia."

"I'm sure it's possible. There are days when I forget I'm… not alone," Anders phrased. "It's just a part of me. If Justice doesn't want out, he doesn't interfere. Maybe it's the same for many mages."

Delia furiously scribbled something down on a sheet of parchment. "I have so much reading to do," she murmured to herself. More loudly, she said, "I will absolutely reach out to Wynne. Even if she can't help us, she should know."

Mahariel nodded.

"I wish I would have known," was all Anders said, and there was no more malice in his voice. Perhaps, Mahariel considered, she should have told him when he and Wynne had met. She would be lying to say that the thought hadn't burned into the back of her mind the whole time the two mages had stood facing each other on the small Chantry yard. Maybe she should have said something. But that was over and done now. She couldn't even say with certainty where Wynne was.

"Let me know if I can assist you in any way, Delia."

"Absolutely. Of course," Mahariel promised, and under the table, Anders took Mahariel's hand. The edges of her mouth turned up briefly.

"We'll leave you to your work," Anders said, and rose from the table. "I think we've done all we can for now."

"Anissa, can you send a letter for me?"

Mahariel peeked into the antiroom of Anissa's small chambers, the antiroom serving as her study and sitting area.

"Of course, Lady Arlessa. I'll get it to the postmaster on the morrow. Shall I pick it up from your quarters or do you have it to hand?"

Mahariel shook her head. "No, I'll need a messenger for this. As soon as you can. Tonight, if possible, but if not, first thing in the morning." She held out the proffered letter and waited for Anissa's response.

The girl bobbed her head. "That can be arranged." Anissa took the letter from Mahariel and rotated it in her hands. "There's no location…"

Mahariel's head swayed from side to side, indicating her deference. "I know. I… It just needs to get to a person. If your runner can't find them through the usual channels, have them inquire at Circles. But our own Chantry might not be the worst place to start."

"Of course, Arlessa." Anissa tucked the letter into a pocket and offered Mahariel leave from her quarters, indicating that she would follow behind. She did, and shut the door behind her.

"One last thing," Mahariel said, just before she turned away. "I… I'm sorry. It's just… If there is a response, have your messenger wait for it. They'll be compensated for their time. This… is of the utmost importance."

"And if there is no response?"

"...I am almost certain that there will be."


	26. She Hoped

"There," she said, when he woke the next morning. "It has been sent."

She perched herself on the end of the bed, next to Anders. He was still weak, and between Justice and Delia and his own energy spent on Mahariel, he was resting still, reclining on the pillows.

Delia had sent her own missive to Wynne, but Mahariel couldn't be sure how many mages - how many people - would have had the same idea, for whatever reason, to invoke the name of the Champion of Kirkwall and reach out to her former companions for good or ill (and in this heated climate, both were equally as likely). It may have been none. But to be safe, Mahariel penned a quick page saying that Delia was indeed acting on her orders and that if Wynne had any concerns - or even wanted to catch up - that she could be assured that Mahariel would be available. She had sent the letter separately to avoid any sense that Wynne was being used or played. Wynne could very well choose not to respond to Delia and tell Mahariel in so many words to shove it, but at least sending them separately, Delia would never have to know, and Wynne would have to trouble herself no longer. She hoped, obviously, that that was not the case, but it certainly wouldn't hurt. And anyway, both letters were sent now. There was no changing her mind even if she wished it.

"I appreciate that, Lyna."

"I know."

"Lyna… If this works…"

She folded her hands in her lap. "Maybe we shouldn't get ahead of ourselves."

"I only mean -"

"Anders, hush," she said gently. "I know. Let's take this one thing at a time. I'm here. You're here. We'll get this… all this," she said, and moved her hands in a broad circle to indicate Anders, herself, the both of them as a whole, "sorted. I promise you that."

"That's vague and yet somehow incredibly reassuring," he said with a small laugh, and tipped himself forward on the pillows to reach out and rest a hand on her shoulder. "I've been giving you nothing but shit, haven't I?"

"You've had a rough time, Anders."

"That's no excuse. I need you to know that I - I value you. You've been nothing but kind, done nothing but help, and all I do is make things worse. I want… Lyna, I want this to work. I want to just be myself again. Maybe I am just myself. But at least then I'll be accountable. I'll have no one else to blame."

"I appreciate your honesty, Anders. I'm going to try everything in my power. Believe me."

"I know you will. And I promise to be more considerate. Remember to breathe, all that."

"That seems like an excellent plan."

"Then it's settled."

"All we have left to do now, I suppose, is wait."

She leaned back toward him and the hand he had placed upon her shoulder worked its way into a small massaging action; the thinness of his fingers worked easily into her tight muscles and between her bones. She groaned a little at the unfamiliar and simple pleasure of having the knots she carried around worked out, and allowed her eyes to close.

There was a hurried pounding at the door to the study.

Mahariel cursed and rose from the bed, motioning Anders to relax again with a flat wave of her palm. She would take care of this. He laid back, but did not ease up immediately; his eyes followed her out of the door and as far as he could see her into the next room.

Mahariel strode quickly through the room, hoping that whatever situation needed her attention could either be solved quickly or waylaid until after lunch.

But it was Fenris at the door, and he did not look like he could be waylaid.

"I'm sure your assistant will be arriving at your door shortly," he said brusquely, "but I thought you would want to know that there is a party arriving here, headed by a man who seems very upset with you, judging by the fact that he lept from his carriage and strode up to the door with a red face and his chin in the air."

Fenris had his sword strapped to his back, which indicated to Mahariel that he was taking this threat seriously enough. She got the feeling that he was not above using the sizeable blade purely for intimation, but she also thought that he didn't seem the type to bring a sword when a situation could be resolved without one. Mahariel pressed her eyes into the palms of her hands and muttered to the floor, "Thank you, Fenris." She looked up and asked, "Was this man small and pale with a mop of blond hair and far too many," she waved her hands up and down her body, "...fruffles on his jacket to be anything fashionable?"

"I'm not the first person one might want to ask about fashion, but he did seem to display his wealth about his person in a rather reckless way."

Mahariel sighed. "Yeah. That's him."

"That's who?"

"Lord Ladomire. ...I don't want to say you would like him, but he's got a real problem with mages." She cast her eyes back to her bedroom where Anders lay.

Fenris did not argue, only offered, "But he's only been here a few days."

"I had thought the same thing. I -" Mahariel pursed her lips. "Let me get my things. And then, if you wouldn't mind walking with me?"

Fenris bowed his head obligingly and leaned against the outside frame of the door to wait.

Mahariel strode quickly back into her bedchambers and flung a blanket up from where it covered a large chest at the foot of her bed. It was the box that contained everything from her time as the Hero of Ferelden: armour, weapons, trinkets… and she shuffled past a certain amount of what could only be described as souvenirs, things that were certain only to bring tears to her eyes. She doubted she would need all of it; she wasn't preparing for a fight, only, as Fenris was, to intimidate, to show that she was serious. All she wanted was her sword.

Starfang's unusual metal gleamed in the light as Mahariel withdrew it cautiously from the blanket she had bundled it in. The greatsword was nearly as long as she herself was tall, but as soon as the hilt was in her hands, the familiar object felt like an extension of her own arm. There were better swords, sharper swords, newer swords certainly, but Starfang was hers and when it shone she felt warm.

"Mahariel..?" Anders asked. In her rush, she had almost entirely forgotten that he was there.

"I have something I need to take care of, Anders," she said, strapping the sword to her back in a practiced motion. She stood up straight and tall and quickly tied her hair up in a knot on the back of her head. "I don't expect I shall be long," her voice was determined.

He sat forward a bit. "Should I…"

Mahariel shook her head vigorously. "Not at all. I'll be fine." She didn't mention she was taking Fenris as backup. She realized in that moment that she wasn't sure Anders had seen or spoken to Fenris once since arriving here - not while in his right mind, anyway. Not while he was really Anders. She gritted her teeth and pushed it to the back of her mind. That was a discussion for later. Or never. Never would be fine with her too.

"Come back soon?" he asked softly, and she grinned an awkward grin at him from the corner of her mouth.

"I sure hope so," and she quickly strode out and into the hallway, where Fenris was waiting for her.

Anissa was dashing up the stairs, her dress gathered in her fists, when she caught sight of the Arlessa.

"Lady Mahariel, L-lord Ladomire is -" but she looked Mahariel and Fenris up and down quickly, "Ah. I assume you already know, then."

"Indeed, Anissa. But you're welcome to follow us down, in case the esteemed Lord should require anything," she said with venom in her voice, and Anissa caught her drift.

"Absolutely, Lady Arlessa," and Mahariel saw a wryness in her assistant that only made her like the girl more.

"Shall we?" Mahariel said to the group, and began to stride confidently down the stairs, a sword and a pen in tow.


	27. She'll Be So Surprised

"This is an outrage!"

Lord Ladomire's voice echoed off of the stone walls of the throne room, despite the elaborate draperies and carpeting that usual served well enough to muffle. The lord had a voice that carried, Mahariel had to give him that much.

She sat lazily on her throne, chin propped up on her fist. Her sword leant against the large chair, as much ready at a moment's notice as it was an object for show. Fenris, like the sword, was to her right, Anissa to her left. Mahariel never sat the throne; it never felt right to her, lording over people whose land she wasn't even from, whose race she didn't even share. She wanted to serve them, not reign over them. But for Lord Ladomire, she would make an exception.

"What is, sir," she said, drolly.

"I requested an audience with you some days ago and have heard nothing back!" His fists were propped on his hips and his servants stood behind him looking as indignant as as their lord. Mahariel hated to pigeonhole people but she'd seen her fair share of Lord Ladomires in her time and could no longer bring herself to be fazed by them.

"Yes, well," she tugged herself a little bit forward on the throne to show that she was at least paying attention to him, "I'm sure you'll understand that I have other matters to attend to, as I oversee not just the city of Amaranthine but indeed the entire state, and -"

"The state of Amaranthine is of no concern to me," the lord said haughtily, but Mahariel continued on as though she had not heard him.

" - if the lord would have waited perhaps just a day or so more at his residence he would see that I had indeed responded to his request saying precisely that, but that I would be willing to set up a date in the near future to meet you at your own home at your own convenience. There was no need for His Lordship to travel all this way," she emphasized the last three words, letting him know that she knew how close their two residences lay together. She did not add that she was sure that the lord would be concerned about the state of Amaranthine outside of the city walls if he stopped receiving grain to bake his bread and brew his beer, or if the borders closed and he was no longer able to import his precious Sun Blonde Vint.

"I do not think her lady understands how imperative that I speak with her," Ladomire said with a glint in his eyes.

"Well, my lord, we are all here now. Speak."

Lord Ladomire looked left, and then right, as though he were about to share a secret, a move that was clearly for show since between Mahariel, Fenris, Anissa, Lord Ladomire, his staff, and the general occupation of Vigil's Keep, there were close to twenty people in the throne room.

"I believe I have good information that assures me you're harboring an apostate mage."

No one in the room flinched, and Ladomire seemed disappointed. Fenris looked a bit more surly but given his general distaste for authority, Mahariel could not be certain the mention of mages even had anything to do with it.

"There is no more Chantry command over the Circles, Ladomire. All mages are apostates, even the ones with Chantry sympathies, whether they like it or not."

"You know very well what I mean, Lady Mahariel."

"Do I, Lord." She wasn't playing dumb - if Lord Ladomire brought up Anders, she would confess openly and again repeat her pro-mage policy as well as the fact that the Chantry's rules were now effectually void. She was doing nothing wrong. Even Anders' possession was not a form of blood magic, if she wanted to split hairs.

So what if he was a murderer, the thought crossed her mind quickly, but she quieted it, latching on to her belligerence for as long as Ladomire was in the room.

"Don't play games with me, Arlessa," he spat her title like it was an expletive. "She's been here for years."

"She..?" Mahariel caught Fenris' and Anissa's eyes upon her, and then Anissa's look of realization as the girl mouthed to Mahariel, "Delia."

"No need to whisper, girl," said Ladomire, witnessing the exchange. "Yes. Delia Whitehope. She was never released from Kirkwall's Gallows. She escaped. She was locked up there for doing research outside of the bounds of what is safe. Lady Arlessa, the girl was researching spirits! Abominations! For all you know, she is a blood mage, doing her evil work right under your nose! She is a rebel mage and should be tried for treason." He ran a hand through his blond hair and stood up straight. His chin was sharp and his skin was smooth and if he hadn't been such a self-righteous bastard, he could have been handsome, but his personality bled through his appearance and from the first time Mahariel had laid eyes on him she had cringed. Now she cringed even harder. But she sat up straight, steeled herself, and put one hand on the pommel of her sword.

"Lord Ladomire. As I have previously stated, Chantry rule no longer applies to mages. The Circles govern themselves, and I stand by them. Regarding Ms. Whitehope, in light of the recent events in Kirkwall and the utter infringement upon the civil rights of the mages there, not exclusively but most egregiously the mages held prisoner in the Gallows, I would say that her ability to escape unharmed should be rewarded, not judged. There was no accusation or proof of anything to do with blood magic; her research was non-traditional but she was not the first mage to delve deeper into the mysteries of the Fade. Knight-Commander Meredith's paranoia is the only reason she was locked up; her research was entirely valid. Delia's escape harmed no one and broke only the laws of a madwoman."

To her right, she heard Fenris chuckle his own sort of approval. No one would deny Meredith's actions had been outside the realm of solid reasoning. Not even Fenris.

"Mistakes were made," Ladomire confessed, "but that does not change the fact that the girl is effectively a fugitive! When she left Kirkwall, she was on the run from the law. A little upset with the mages shouldn't change that! She is on the run from justice!"

Mahariel sat silently as long as she could. She could feel Fenris' knowing eyes on her. Slowly, her mouth twisted up into a grin, then split broadly as she began to laugh. She couldn't help it.

"My dear Lord Ladomire," she said with what breath she had, "you and I clearly have very different notions about what exactly justice demands. But the point is moot." She stood, and used her sword to lean on. "The last time I checked, I was still the Warden Commander and this was still Vigil's Keep. This should not be necessary but given your warped idea of the legal system, I invoke the Rite of Conscription. So long as Delia serves this keep, she is mine to command - and mine alone. If you disagree, you can take it up with Queen Anora, but given her history with the Blight, I don't think she'll be inclined to agree with you." Actually, given who Queen Anora's father had been, disagreeing with Mahariel would probably be the first thing on Anora's to do list. But the queen had softened and Mahariel did not think that Lord Ladomire would be so bold as to take up Warden treaties with the Queen of Ferelden, so she let her comment stand. "Are we finished here?"

Lord Ladomire narrowed his eyes. "Oh, no, Arlessa. I don't think we're finished at all. Come!" he commanded his staff, and they all began to exit the throne room behind their lord, none of them having been dismissed. Mahariel didn't care. She just wanted him gone. If he chose to take his leave of his own volition, it was the single thing she would not hold against the man.

Once she heard the Keep's gate slam shut, she collapsed back into the throne letting her sword's hilt fall against her knees. She muttered into her hands, "Blessed Andraste have mercy."

"Well now," said Fenris; he knelt down a bit to meet her at her level, "I suppose we had better hope that that man doesn't find out about our very special abomination."

"Shut it, you," said Mahariel, and indicated that Anissa was still present with a tip of her head, but her heart wasn't in it. "Well, I best go tell Delia she's a blood mage and a fugitive. She'll be so surprised."

* * *

 _Note:_ Hi guys I'm back. Was away on a trip for a while so expect more frequent updates from hereon out.

Oh PS I'm writing the epilogue right now

;)


	28. She Couldn't Imagine

"He said what!?"

Mahariel shook her head. "Don't worry about it, Delia. Ever since I took office here, Ladomire has had a problem with me. He doesn't hate mages, he just hates the idea of mages. So long as they're locked away in their Circles, he's fine with them. But the fact that I employed them? Openly? Blasphemy. Now that there are no Chantry-driven Circles, I can only imagine what a can of worms this has opened up for the poor lord's intolerance. Nothing will come of it, Delia. But we will have to be very careful about Anders from this point on."

They both swiveled their heads around to peer through the library's tall shelves at the mage, who sat in front of the fireplace, reading calmly. Delia lowered her voice.

"But if this Lord Ladomire is just some mage-hating crackpot, what does it matter if he knows about Anders?"

Mahariel frowned. "I know what he's done isn't blood magic, but just because Chantry rule over the Circles has ended, it doesn't mean that people will look any more kindly on abominations, even if that's not exactly what Anders is. People who fear mages already have a hard time with nuance. If anything, it might stir them to action - possessed mages running free? And -" she lowered her voice further, " - this particular mage? Let's just… keep all of this very hush-hush. We don't even know what kind of magic we're going to have to use to separate Anders from Justice. If it strays into any kind of non-traditional territory, blood magic or no - and you know as well as I do that it almost certainly will - we'll have people like Ladomire battering down the door to burn us all."

Delia glanced to Anders and back to Mahariel. "Alright," she sighed, tucking her blonde hair behind her ear and finding a seat at the table. I only wish I'd been more careful with my letter. If anyone reads that…"

"I know. Try not to worry. Our messengers are good. They've dealt with situations like this in the past. I don't foresee any incidents, and if anything comes up, they know how to handle it."

See saw Delia slump forward a little in her chair.

"Delia. You've done nothing wrong. I have always insisted that this keep be a safe place for anyone who needs it. I know all the risks I take every time I open my doors to someone. None of this is your fault, and I will continue to offer safe haven to you and anyone who needs it for as long as I am. The last thing that would change that would be some self-satisfied little prick with a Maker complex who comes pounding at my door demanding I re-enslave all the mages I was instrumental in freeing in the first place, okay?"

A thin smile crept across the mage's lips.

"I can see why they like you."

"They?"

"Anders and that elven gentleman."

Mahariel turned beet red. "It's not - I don't - I -"

"So what's our next move?" Anders voice came from the behind Mahariel. The Warden Commander put her hands over her pink cheeks, hoping her cool fingers would cool her hot face quickly.

"Well," she said, her voice muffled around her hands before she pulled them away, "we wait. Delia is going back through her old work to see if she's missed any references to reversals of possession, and I've sent correspondence out to book merchants to see if we can acquire any new materials, but for now…"

"There's nothing more we can do," Anders said. He tried to hide the anxiety in his voice; he of all people knew that this kind of magic would take time, but Mahariel understood his eagerness. Once he had finally come to the decision, she couldn't imagine how much the waiting must be weighing on him.

"I'll keep looking," Delia offered helpfully, and Anders did his best not to sag in his chair.


	29. She Put Her Head Down

"Do you think that Lord Ladomire will go to the queen?" Fenris asked, resting his hip against Mahariel's table.

She cocked an eyebrow at him. "Please don't take this the wrong way, Fenris, but… do you really care?"

"I…" he began to defend himself, but thought better of it, "...see your point." He wet his mouth, choosing his words carefully. "I do. Because that man seems to have a propensity for an abuse of power and I don't particularly care for that sort of behaviour, magical ability aside."

Mahariel nodded. "I follow. As far as Anora, I'm almost sure he won't. And if he does, and if she cares, I'll tell her the same thing I told her in Denerim."

"That being?"

Mahariel cast him a sidelong glance that he could easily interpret as a phrase beginning with "go" and ending with "yourself."

"You didn't get on terribly well with her?"

"Well, considering that I was an elf who was just moments away from taking that title from her until a certain member of the royal family threw himself onto an Archdemon, I would say no, we were never very fond of each other."

Fenris sucked his cheeks in a bit as he digested this information.

"You could have been queen."

Mahariel only nodded, looking back down at the table.

"Wouldn't that have been something."

The frankness with which Fenris said this took a moment to penetrate Mahariel's thick layer of cynicism, longer still with regard to Fenris' penchant for that same inclination, but when she realized that he said this with no malice or underhanded notions, she laughed. Deep from her gut, turning her face pink, she laughed.

"Wouldn't it just!" she exclaimed.

Anders walked in then, through the door to Mahariel's chambers which had been left slightly ajar. "What's all this then?" he asked, his eyes darting from Mahariel to Fenris and back again.

"I could have been queen!" Mahariel laughed, as though this explained everything. She put her head down on the table, still shaking and muttered, "Ah, it could have been me."

Fenris was only smiling broadly, shaking his head.

"Indeed…?" Anders' said, confusion on his face, too baffled to concern himself overmuch with Fenris' presence at just that moment.

Mahariel tried to explain, shoulders still quivering. "Lord Ladomire. His hot-shot 'I'm going to the queen' bullshit." She sucked in a deep breath. "It could have been me." The spell was broken, the mirth was gone. She did not pick her forehead up from the table.

Fenris and Anders exchanged a glance in which they disagreed upon nothing.


	30. Out, She Said

"I didn't…" Mahariel began slowly. She'd gone outside for fresh air, and both men had followed her, putting aside their disagreements to make sure their Warden Commander wasn't about to throw herself into the sea. "I didn't want to be queen." She pushed her hair away from her face and looked up into the evening sky. "Andraste's teeth, this is enough work," she said with a laugh.

But both Fenris and Anders knew that that wasn't what it was about. It was about the certain member of the royal family who had thrown himself under an Archdemon, which Fenris whispered quietly to Anders, his words quick and soft, and Anders folded his arms and nodded before Fenris had even finished his exposition.

Mahariel turned around to explain herself and saw the two men in secret congress, and bit her tongue behind a shallow smile.

"Out," she said. "Both of you, out."

"Lyna," Fenris said quickly, "we were - I was -"

"Go home, you jesters. I'm fine." She waved them away, and wouldn't take anything else as an answer.

As they were walking away, Anders drew himself up and looked down on the elf warrior, using his height as well as he could. He dropped the tenor of his voice and asked, "Did you just call her Lyna?"

Fenris frowned at Anders and walked away, toward the woods.


	31. He Was

The letter from Wynne came only a few days later, much sooner than Mahariel had been anticipating. It said only that Wynne respected Delia's current line of research, that Wynne may be able to help, but that, currently, the senior mage was in the middle of something very dire and would not be able to lend thorough assistance at the present; her time for correspondence was limited and her ability to visit was unfortunately nil. She had affixed a PS at the bottom to say that she was glad that Mahariel was well and instilling strong educational values in her subjects. Of the actual specifics of Delia's and Mahariel's letters, she said nothing. Wynne was either indeed very busy or giving both of the Amaranthine women the cold shoulder. Mahariel chose to believe that Wynne was as honest as she had ever been and that it was the former, but the latter nagged at her anyway. It didn't matter, she decided, after having read the letter a few times over; it was an answer with its own sort of definance and there was nothing else to be done. She shared the news with Delia.

The young mage was much brighter than Mahariel had expected her to be about the situation. "Well, then," Delia said, putting her hands flat on her library desk and sitting straight up in her seat. "I suppose we'll have to rely on our own wits for this one, won't we?" It wasn't the answer Mahariel had foreseen, and she was thankful for it. But even she saw the dark storm forthcoming. "I don't know how Anders will take it, though. He seems like he can be a bit… intense."

Mahariel went to her room, but Anders wasn't there. He had been feeling better, had been gaining back a bit of weight, and had been using the opportunity to refamiliarize himself with the Keep; not much had changed. She found him in the throne room, propped up against the wall, looking around. She walked up to him and said softly, "Hey there, stranger."

"Feels like yesterday, doesn't it?" he said, looking around.

"Feels like a decade ago," Mahariel confessed, putting her fists in the small of her back and stretching with a groan.

"That too," he admitted. There was a short silence between the two of them, and Anders eyes followed Mahariel's shape up and down. "Damn it," he whispered, and took her face swiftly in his hands, "I should have done this ten years ago." He kissed her hard, lingering there for a moment, just long enough for Mahariel's shock to fade, and then let her go.

Her jaw briefly hung a bit slack, but she quickly regained her composure and said, "That would have had so much more impact if you hadn't also done that a year ago."

"I don't know, you don't feel like it was special? A little? Standing right here, where you first flirted with me?"

"I? Flirted with you? Nice try. That was all you."

"You gave me a small orange kitten. If that isn't flirting, I don't know what is."

"You definitely didn't know what it was ten years ago."

"I did so! I was just too -"

But he stopped himself.

"Too what?" she pressed.

"I…" but he shook his head.

"Oh go on. What in the world can't you tell me?"

"Oh Andraste's sacred garters, Lyna. I was scared to death of you. Everyone was."

She narrowed her blue eyes at him, but there was no play there, only honesty.

Anders went on. "You took no shit from anyone. You were ferocious with a weapon. You had seen things most of us couldn't imagine. You were as scary as the darkspawn we were fighting, and it was… rather… intense."

Which, Mahariel knew, was not the word that he wanted to use, but this was neither the time nor the place for the word that Anders wanted to use, despite his fierce kiss.

Anders continued, "And when I realized I had nothing to fear from you, I got to know you. I knew your history. And that, possibly, was even more formidable. It wasn't my place to intrude into your life. Perhaps I should have anyway. I always said I was waiting for you to make the first move; was that stupid of me?"

She grinned broadly, unable to hold it against him. "No. Not at all. Maybe we were both waiting for something. Some kind of a sign. Who knows where we would be if if we had just jumped into the sack once we had money for the Keep to buy sacks to jump into."

Anders looked around. "This place was rather a wreck at the time."

"No, you're supposed to say, 'I like what you've done with the place.'"

"Ah."

She narrowed her eyes at him. "You're still such a shit, you know that?"

"See? I'm still the man you were helpless but to fall in love with."

Her eyelids fluttered.

Yes.

He was.


	32. She Put Up Her Hand

"I believe…" Delia said breathlessly, haltingly, hands clasped in front of her as she looked down at Mahariel's table and then up to the Arlessa and Anders and then back down to the table frantically again. "I have it."

"You do?" Mahariel said slowly, anxiously, not wanting to press the nervous mage sitting before her.

It had been more than a week since Wynne's letter of effective rejection, but still, this was much faster than Mahariel would have hoped. She knew that this was very nearly Delia's preferred line of inquiry, which is why she had gone to her without reservations; she knew she wouldn't have to fear any sort of judgement or misconstrual, but the sheer speed with which Delia was able to fill Mahariel's request made the Arlessa jittery. "Are you certain?"

Anders stood behind Mahariel, one hand on her small shoulder. He said nothing, but his fingers flexed and she could feel them as they tightened against her skin.

Delia looked up and looked down again. "Arlessa… I may not have been completely honest with you."

"Delia, it's alright. I know you've been working on this for a long time. Removing demons from innocent mages isn't exactly a new line of inquiry. I just wasn't expecting -"

"Arlessa, please. Let me speak." It came out choked. When Delia looked up again, she saw that the girl's face was flush, her blonde curls were in tangles. It was not early in the morning, nearly noon, but Mahariel could tell now that Delia had not slept, not last night, and maybe even before. Cautiously, Mahariel lowered herself into the chair opposite Delia at the table. Anders stood behind her still, a protective gesture, but one that also betrayed his reluctance, his fear.

"Go ahead, Delia."

She chewed her bottom lip and began slowly. "When I was in the Circle Tower, I had an excellent mentor. I don't know what I would have done without her. After my Harrowing, I had so many fears, so many questions. Senior Enchanter Malvina showed me the Fade so much more carefully, so much more gently than First Enchanter Irving - it wasn't his fault, of course, they don't call it a Harrowing for nothing - and for three years I spent as much time in the Fade as I could with her.

"I… I have to tell you now, because I know you were there. Malvina had nothing to do with… with what Uldred did. She didn't even know, right up until everyone knew, and she stood with Wynne, and with Irving, and against Uldred. But…" Delia put her face in her hands. "I promise you, Arlessa. I promise you, I didn't even know what it was at the time, and she never hurt anyone - I never hurt anyone - and when the Circle fell I lost Malvina and I only realized later -"

"It was blood magic."

They were the first words out of Anders' mouth since Delia had come to Mahariel's room.

Delia did not speak. She only nodded.

Anders closed his eyes. Mahariel felt the grip on her shoulder loosen as Anders' hands and shoulders went slack. He did not accuse Delia, but only said softly to himself, to the air, to no one, "I should have known it was too much to ask."

"But Delia, you said you can do this? You can separate Justice from -"

"No," Anders interrupted, more forcefully, then lowered his voice once more. "No. Not… not if it's blood magic."

"No one has to be hurt," Delia said quickly. "I can use my own blood, and the more lyrium I can get the less blood I have to use at all. There just… there just has to be a sacrifice -" she put up her hand quickly. "No, no, it doesn't have to be a life, no. Just the blood."

"I know how this works," Anders said, and he turned away from the table, from Mahariel. "It doesn't have to be a life, no. But the more blood we have, the stronger the magic will be. And then it'll require more and more and more," he hissed.

"No, never, no," Delia insisted, "no, I promise. I've -" but the words caught like a gag in her throat.

"You've?" Mahariel pushed, trying to hear both sides of the argument. She thought she would bend like a sapling in the wind towards Anders' point of view with all the evil and terror she had seen blood magic do, but if it could also do this…

"I've done this before," Delia forced herself to say. "Not this, exactly, but I've worked with spirits. Worked in the Fade. Given my own blood," the last few words were much quieter. "Anders, you know not all spirits are evil. You know not all who harbor them are abominations. This is no different," she urged.

"This is different!" he whipped back around to confront her, but stayed on the other side of the room, making no motion to move toward her. Mahariel was glad of that; behind his eyes, she saw a worrisome electric blue flash.

"Alright," she said, her tone flat and even. "That's enough for now. Delia, you're dismissed, but trust I will speak to you later. Keep yourself available. If you are not in the library, I want you in your chambers, do you understand?"

Delia stood, and bowed her head down to her chest. "Of course, Arlessa." She moved toward the door and pulled it open, but before she left, she hastily added, "Thank you, Arlessa," and hurried away, closing the door behind her.

Mahariel rose and stretched forward over the table. She thought to herself that after all this, she should take some time off, then remembered that the last time she had taken a vacation, she'd helped to begin a rebellion. Certainly this was nowhere near as monumental as that, even if it was equally exhausting. Perhaps more.

"Well," she said to Anders, who seemed to have regained his composure, "now we just have to figure out what to do about all that."

"Do? We do nothing," he insisted.

"Anders -"

"Don't, Lyna. No good will come of this. I have tread some dangerous waters but I will not go near that current."

Mahariel sighed through her nose. It was his choice, she supposed. It was his body, his spirit. But he had wanted so much to be free of it. She dared to ask herself what it could possibly hurt to undo what most people thought of as blood magic with more blood magic. Two wrongs, and all that, but how did she know that any of this was even wrong? She now fully believed that what Anders had done had been entirely questionable, but wrong? No. Not after having known Wynne like she did. If the spirit had become twisted, she had to admit that it must have been something within the man himself that had done the twisting. She did not blame Anders for being human, and thus could not judge his actions so harshly as that.

And she thought of Merrill.

"Alright," she conceded to him, "let's give it a rest."

Anders knew that she was placating to him, but he didn't mind. She wasn't pushing the subject. His mind was busy turning over and over in his head, thinking about Delia and what, if anything, should be done with her, about her. It was not his place to decided; that responsibility rested entirely in Lyna's hands, if anyone's, but he could not wrap his mind around her. Delia's first concern seemed to be to cause no harm to come to anyone involved in her spiritual transactions, and that was not a notion he had often seen. He had seen plenty of blood mages who thought that they were doing good work, freely admitting that the small harms they were inflicting, the "sacrifices" that they were making, would in the end be better for all.

Hadn't he done the very same?

The realization shouldn't have surprised him, but it did, and the impact with which it hit him took his breath away.

These were things he had been accused of, he knew. They called him murderer, they called him abomination, they called him blood mage, and he was none of those things, but -

He was all of those things.

Anders was dizzy. He reached out, he put his hand on the wall, its rough texture bringing him back to himself, but his mind wanted to escape. His breathing picked up, his stomach churned.

Mahariel saw his distress, went to his aid, but he fell to his knees, slowly pressing his head against the cool stone floor.

"Lyna," he breathed, and for the first time, he asked himself as he asked her, "What have I done?"


	33. She Let Her Hair Fall

Sitting quietly, Mahariel picked the petals off of a daisy. She tossed away the stem, plucked another from the patch beneath the rock where she was sitting, and began to de-petal it as well. She did this several times, with Fenris watching her all the while, as he ran a whetstone over his blade. It made a satisfying "schink" every time he reached the end. The only other noises were the forest's own kind of silence: small animals creeping in underbrush, wind through grasses and trees, the hum of insects, and somewhere, far off, but not so far off that it was forgotten, the ocean. At this distance the sound of the crashing waves was only a soft woosh of white noise.

Mahariel tossed away another used-up daisy and stretched her arms, up and over her head first, lengthening her body up, then she stretched them out in front and away from her, stretching her back like a cat. She folded her legs up and sat with one leg crossed, the other with her knee pulled into her chest, and she wrapped her arms around this leg, resting her cheek on her knee, looking out into the forest at nothing in particular.

"What am I going to do about Anders." Her voice was very soft, spoken mostly to herself, but it abruptly broke the silence of the forest, and all attention was now focused on her, it seemed, from the trees to the water to Fenris. He stopped sharpening his blade and rested his sword on the grass beside him. He tangled his own body up in a similar fashion to hers, and his wide, hazel eyes deigned to fix themselves upon her. She could tell he was waiting a moment before he spoke, even though the silence was already disturbed. He was doing it for her sake.

"I…" he said slowly, looking for the right words, "...appreciate his… firm dedication to his moral code," he did not add, "whatever that means," but he thought it with extreme prejudice. "But I am forced to ask, if this was something he was entirely serious about, do you not think he would take any option he was given? Especially if, as I think I am correct in assuming, there is indeed only one option?"

Mahariel frowned a crooked frown that was not aimed outward at Fenris so much as it was aimed at herself. "Thank you for being civil," she said, and was not mean or ill-spirited in anyway; she didn't know if she could handle him being anything but civil at the moment.

He nodded his head in acquiescence, understanding her perfectly.

She let her hair fall loosely into her eyes as she looked down at him from her slightly elevated position upon the boulder. "And I just don't know. He resents blood magic as much as others resent all of mage-kind."

Fenris put his hands on his thighs and straightened his back, pressing the heels of his hands into the muscles of his legs. "Perhaps it would behoove him to be a bit more flexible."

She gave Fenris a knowing look, and slid slowly down from her perch. Coming to rest next to him on the grass, she allowed him to put his arm around her. The gesture carried nothing with it but the comfort of a hard-won friendship, and they sat there like that for a quiet while, allowing one of the last days of summer to pass over them like water.


	34. Let's Prove Him Wrong

Ever since Delia's confession, Anders had stayed firmly put in Mahariel's quarters, and when he was not there, he settled himself into a chair in the throne room, which was well on the opposite side of the Keep from the library. He went in there only when Delia was not, grabbed an armful of books, and made off with them like a bandit, to read and make notations and look for any other way besides the one that Delia had suggested to evict Justice from his being. Mahariel appreciated his dedication in the face of adversity, but given that this was what Delia had spent most of her life studying, she was skeptical of Anders' success, and she told him so. He fired back that Delia was incapable of finding another solution because she had used blood magic as a crutch all of her life, and Mahariel let the comment stand, not pointing out that certainly other mages had been looking for the same solution as Anders and so far had turned up naught, with the possible exception but certainly not even the guarantee of Wynne.

Mahariel suffered no such animosity toward Delia and so once Anders was settled down with his temporary library, Mahariel went to the more permanent fixture to speak with Delia alone.

She found the blonde woman sitting dejectedly by the fire, head bowed low. In the grate, a small flame burned, just enough to give off weak light, enough to read by, and not much heat. But Delia was reading nothing, only staring at the grain of the wood on her desk.

"Hey, there," Mahariel said softly.

Delia looked up and her gentle eyes were red, but dry. She recognized Mahariel and stood up quickly, kicking her chair and almost knocking it over in the process. It made a horrible grating noise across the stone floor and Delia winced, looking embarrassed.

Mahariel smiled in a cautious way and shook her head, a simple gesture to let Delia know that this - and indeed, everything - was okay. She sat down and motioned for Delia to do the same.

"Lady - Lady Arlessa, I just want to say -"

Mahariel put up her hand. "First, I've told you, it's just Mahariel. Second, there's nothing that you need explain to me. Anders might have his own issues with you, but so far as I'm concerned, we're fine here. You've confessed more than you needed to, and I trust you. Anything else you would like to hold close to your heart is your business. I cannot believe that you were ever in the business of causing another person harm for your own gain."

"No," Delia said quickly, then narrowed her eyes and sputtered, "I mean, yes; I mean, I would never -"

"I know what you mean, Delia. Trust me. It's alright. That's not what I'm here to talk about."

Delia blinked quickly. "Then what?"

Mahariel shifted in her seat, folded her hands in front of her, and insisted, "Anders is being an ass."

"Mahariel…?"

"He knows he doesn't want to live with Justice anymore. He realizes his deal was a mistake - even if it wasn't at first, it's certainly not helping him now, and he's told me of more than one instance in which it's actively caused harm - to himself, yes, but also to others. I need him to understand that. I need him to understand that perhaps being allied with Justice is no different from the blood magic he abhors so much, and perhaps," she lowered her voice, "I may say perhaps but you and I both know that I mean certainly," and Mahariel lifted the volume of her speech again, "perhaps he's doing more harm than your 'blood magic,' though I hesitate even to use the term, of yours that he fears so much."

Delia stared slack-jawed at Mahariel for a moment.

"What is it?" the Warden Commander asked.

"I feel like I could hug you."

Mahariel's small, stoic smile split into a toothy grin.

"Well," she said, jostling her shoulders to sit up especially tall, "now then," and she said it like a proud mother, so that Delia blushed and focused her gaze on the grain of the table again, but now for a much different reason.

"Mahariel, I do… I do really appreciate your understanding. I don't want to… to sit here and extol the virtues of the... kind of magic I was trained in," her voice slid carefully over the word "kind," and she continued, "and I don't want to say there's no harm in it."

"But?"

Delia sucked in a deep breath. "But it works. And it's powerful. And it requires more self-control than most people have, which is why it's dangerous. It is dangerous. I imagine that's why it leads to the kind of things that Anders is so afraid of. That everyone is so afraid of. And they should be. But it's not the magic itself that does the harm. It's the power. This kind of thing, it offers you a lot of power. And you have to know how and when to say no." She shuffled a bit, looking uncertain. "I want to tell you this because I've never done anything like what you're asking me. I've never done anything this big before. I don't…" she looked away, and licked her lips. "I want you to be there. Not just because you deserve to be there, not just because you're asking this of me. I want you to be there to… to…. to stop me, if anything goes wrong. If I go too far." Mahariel went to interject, but Delia raised her hand politely to stop her. "Please. I don't like to think I'm the kind of person who is easily swayed by power. I was raised not to be, of course, but as the Rebellion has shown, that's meaningless. But I mean it when I say that power means nothing to me. I don't want that. I want to be here, with you. I say that soberly, and of sound mind. But I don't know what will happen once - if - we start the ritual. I don't want the power, no. But others might. Demons are drawn to this kind of magic - demons are drawn to all magic, but the blood… it seems to offer them an easier way in. So, yes. I need you not just to be there, but to be read to - to end this, to stop this, if anything goes wrong. I would rather die than prove Anders right," she said with a small but not at all mirthful laugh.

"Then," Mahariel said, standing, "let's prove him wrong."


	35. She'll Die for You

"Have you found it yet?" Mahariel said coyly, bending over Anders as he flicked through another volume of some arcane lore. She'd offered him everything her contacts had been able to get their hands on - he even accepted the ones that had come from Tevinter, and she thought that he might find Delia's ritual there. But the way his face was screwed up over the text, it was obvious that his search was fruitless, and so she taunted him gently as she knelt down beside his cluttered little work area in the Throne Room.

He looked at her with lowered lids and lips pressed thin. He didn't need to answer.

"I'm sorry. That was mean."

Anders put his book down and his face relaxed. "No, it's not that. It's just… this is so frustrating. You were right, someone would have found it by now if it were easy. Or possible."

She stood and smoothed his hair gently. "You know that this is entirely your call, but -"

"You want me to talk to Delia again."

Mahariel looked at him in a way that was verging on pleading. "I don't think it would hurt."

"No one ever does."

"Oh, cut the crap, Anders, you have no high ground here. You nearly said so yourself. You don't have to do this, you know, but this was your choice. This was something you came to me with, and unless we somehow come up with our own College of Magi to research nothing but this problem day and night and an equally impressive supply of lyrium, I don't know that you're going to find another way. Delia found a way, and she was very candid with me about it. She wants me to be there if you choose to do this. She wants me to be there to put a stop to anything unplanned that might happen during the course of the ritual. Do you understand what that means? What she's prepared to do? For you? She'll die for you, Anders, if it comes to that. I'm sure it's not her prime objective, but she would rather die than succumb to the craving for power, than become an Abomination. But you mark my words, ser," and Mahariel pointed an accusing finger at him, "if you do decide to take her up on her offer, both you and I are going to do everything in our power to make sure that that doesn't happen. Do you understand me?"

She watched Anders swallow hard, suppressing the comebacks and sarcastic remarks he would have offered had Mahariel allowed him to get a word in edgewise. But she had not, and thus had made her point. All he said was, "I understand."

Mahariel nodded, satisfied. "Good," she said, and walked away. She had given him plenty to think about. Now she would give him time to decide, really decide, not just brush away the notion of the whole thing because of preconceived and, given his current conundrum, baseless biases. She went to her chambers to await his answer. A well-considered answer, she hoped, no matter what it was.


	36. She Snapped the Book Shut

When Anders came to Mahariel's room, he didn't have an answer. He sat at the foot of her bed, she curled up beneath the blankets with a book, and she watched his gears turn. Well, she thought, at least she had made it through to him. He was very obviously reconsidering the question, and he was doing it in her presence, so, she figured, he must have come to terms with the fact that Mahariel was okay with Delia's magic.

Mahariel followed the lines of the novel in front of her with her eyes, but nothing penetrated her brain. She read the same line over and over, but it was no use. She was too busy reading him.

She snapped shut the book. "Anders," she said quietly, but firmly, "come here."

He turned to look at her and when he saw that she did not mean to nag him, he slid across the top of the bedsheets to her side. Loosely, she put her arm behind his back, and he slid down against the pillows until her forearm rested across his shoulders.

They lay there quietly for a few minutes, the candle at Mahariel's bedside flickering every now and again, and a silence unlike any silence Mahariel had known in years seem to drape itself around them. When Anders was ready, she spoke.

"I want to make the right choice." He paused, but she didn't interrupt. She could tell he was still thinking. "Everything in me screams that this is wrong, but then, I have to ask myself, why? I've always questioned exactly that - what is right and what isn't, and I've found the accepted answers wanting. So why this. You and I have seen equally as much horror caused by blood magic, but we've also both seen the horror caused by swords, by arrows, by bare hands alone. Why am I so convinced that this is different?"

"Give yourself more credit than that," she offered. "Blood magic does lend itself to a whole slew of things that even wholesale murder does not. But if the blood is only from willing participants, if I am on guard… I don't know, Anders. You've told me about the things you've done, the things you don't even remember doing. I can keep you here, keep you safe if you want, but you'll be confined here forever. Can you, in good conscious, let yourself back out into the world? You're stronger now, certainly, but what of your work? What of the mages?"

She heard him push down a lump in his throat.

"To be honest, Lyna, I'm not sure that that's going to matter a good deal longer."

Mahariel worked through his meaning, and after a moment, she realized, "The Blight."

He spoke slowly, distantly, almost as though he were not speaking at all. "You must hear it calling. I feel it stronger every day. There's so much more there, so much more blackness… I don't remember when it first appeared, I wasn't often in my right mind, and never thought to look. I know that there is no cure for this, there may never be. But there is a difference between 'no cure' and 'too late.' For you there is no cure. For myself, I fear…" Anders shook his head, and came back to his senses. "I am tired, Lyna. And I am weak. And perhaps staying here… would not be so bad a thing after all. I don't know what more I can do for the mages; I think my work there is done. But that aside, I don't want to lay the burden of Justice on your shoulders. I feel as though my best choice is to be rid of him, no matter where I live out my days."

Not wanting to rush him, it was some moments before Mahariel turned to lay her book on the bedside table and turned back to him, eyes intent. She took both his hands in her free one. "Do you think…" she began for him, unwilling to put words in his mouth.

He looked away from her quickly, then back. His face was still so thin, eyes still sunken, but they were bright and clear when he said, "I… I want to say yes. I just…"

Mahariel shook her head, brown hair cascading around her face and shoulders. "Take your time. You don't have to decide this now."

He pushed her hair behind her long, slender ear and let his hand rest there for a moment, before he brought it down to meet the other in Mahariel's open fingers. "Thank you. But I should decide soon. You know that as well as I do."

She gave him an encouraging smile and squeezed his fingers tightly.

"Did I even tell you that I missed you? Maker, how I missed you."

"Anders, you're here now. And you're getting better, as much as you can be," she wasn't going to kid herself, or lie to him; the Blight had done serious damage. But already he looked a little rounder, a little more himself. "And no matter what you choose, I'll see to it that you're as well off as I can make you."

"It won't be trouble if I… if I want to stay?"

She laughed. "You know as well as I do that I can make plenty of trouble for myself. You're just another drop in the bucket of weird shit that is my life."

And he couldn't argue with that, so he chuckled, laid his head down on her shoulder, and let himself be at peace for the first time in a very long time.


	37. She Didn't Look Up

She woke up with Anders' head resting on her chest, the mage unfazed by the motion of her breathing. His arms were wrapped around her, fingers accidentally tangled in her hair, and she realized she was entirely trapped; trapped, and without a care in the world. She tipped her chin forward and kissed the mage on his blond head, the heat from his sleep warm on her lips. She didn't know how long they had slept but the amount of light in the room seemed to say that it was later in the day than the Warden Commander would normally allow herself leave to take her rest, and she couldn't bring herself to care. Something caved inside of her, and she found herself wanting nothing more than this moment, rich with the softness of blankets and haziness of over-rest, for as long as she could possibly take it. Mahariel stifled a yawn and instead nuzzled her nose deeper into Anders hair, breathing in his scent, different now that she remembered it from more than a year ago, but whether that was a change in him or a failing of her own memory, she could not say. It was a familiar, comforting smell, either way, and she found herself breathing slowly against his hair until her eyelids fluttered down and her neck relaxed with her head back against her pillow.

Whether she really slept again or just drifted into that peaceful state of dreamy half-awareness she couldn't say, but when she again took stock of her surroundings, she found Anders' warm, brown eyes fixed upon her.

He had slept next to her since coming back to Vigil's Keep, but not like this. Not this comfortable, soft around the edges, intimate way. He didn't say anything, only pressed his cheek to hers and kissed the corner of her mouth with the corner of his. She pushed back softly in response, not to push him away, but to push herself closer.

They'd fallen asleep in their clothes and between the day and the blankets and the extra layers, the temperature climbed to imperfect levels, and so Mahariel freed herself from his grasp just enough to pull her proper shift over her head and discard it over the side of the bed, leaving her in her stockings and underdress. Anders loosed the ties of his robes at the neck, and they split casually down the front like an overripe fruit, leaving his neck bare and chest covered by the thin cotton undershirt beneath his clothes. Mahariel pressed her lips where the undershirt met his collarbones, and they settled down again into the plush comfort of too many pillows and cushions.

Mahariel slipped further down in his grasp and she lay now with the top of her head just under his jaw, his arms still clutching her, their fingertips touching when they met. Lazily, he moved his chin along her brow, the rough stubble tickling there, reaching almost to her eyelashes when he tipped his face down to rest his cheek against her hair.

She felt so tiny in his arms. He couldn't deny it. She was the only elf he had ever been so close with, and no human felt so meek, so birdlike in his grasp. He knew her strength, had seen it first-hand when she wielded her greatsword and tore into the flesh of her enemies. The weight of the sword alone was impressive; the fact that she never flinched when she disconnected darkspawn heads from darkspawn spines even more so. But while she lay here, she was small. There was a new gentle smoothness to places he remembered having been more angled even just a year ago, and he ran his fingers, his palms over them, learning the new map of her body. Only the roadmarkers had changed; the paths and mountains and valleys all remained in their rightful place. It was a landscape he would never forget, but they were paths he would revisit, reclaim, remember whenever he was given the chance.

He knew then he had only one choice.

"I don't want to leave you," he said, keeping his voice low, as though the silence of the room could not be restored once disturbed.

She didn't look up from where her head rested, only breathed against him, "You don't have to."

He sighed. "I'll talk to Delia. Just as soon as I get out of this bed."

He felt her smile before she cautioned, "Might be a while."

"A risk I'm willing to take."

* * *

 _Note: Thanks to some very kind reviewers, I was made aware that this chapter posted with some weird formatting when I initially put it up this morning (which is weird, because I've copy/pasta-ed from the same Google Doc since day one, but c'est la vie). As you can see it's been corrected, and hopefully this won't happen again. Thanks, guys!_


	38. She Could Not Stop Him

"Well, I think it's safe to say we're going to need a lot of lyrium," Delia remarked.

"I'll handle that," Mahariel said. "I know a few places I can reach out to. Might take a little while, what with recent events," she made a circle with her hands and then an exploding motion, "but I should be able to get a reasonable quantity."

"Good," Delia nodded. "The more lyrium we have, the less we'll have to draw on the blood. That'll be safer. Well, I guess it depends on your idea of safe, but it'll be less…"

"Morally questionable?" Anders offered from behind Mahariel. He stood with his hands on her shoulders, and he tried to say it with a smile, having, after all, finally volunteered for the ritual, but Mahariel just rolled her eyes at him, and Delia saw the gesture and tried to suppress a grin.

"I think that about takes care of everything. I'll start drafting this all out on paper as soon as I can."

"It's not quite everything," Mahariel admitted. "Let me get back to you both."

* * *

"Can I ask you a favor?" Mahariel stood with her hands in the small pockets of her Warden's robes, shoulder propped up against the outer stone wall of the Keep. Fenris faced her, arms crossed, looking stern. She wasn't sure if the look was directed at her or if Fenris was just feeling particularly stern that day. Mahariel liked to think that she had gotten to know the warrior rather well, but sometimes he still remained inscrutable to her, and she couldn't help but feel that he knew exactly what he was doing, because he was doing it on purpose. But that was his prerogative, and he motioned for her to continue, so she did.

"Anders has agreed to Delia's ritual."

"Indeed," he tried to say it flatly, but there was Mahariel's upper hand - she did know him, and she could tell now that she had his interest.

"Stand guard with me."

Fenris was silent a moment, and bored into Mahariel's eyes with his own.

"You know what you're asking me to do, don't you?"

She nodded. "I do. I will be doing the same. And I want to think that I'm entirely unbiased the face of this kind of thing, but I know that if it came down to it, that wouldn't be true. I want you there beside me. I know you'll do the right thing."

Fenris shifted his weight from one foot to the other, and crossed his arms.

"You're hesitant."

"You know my thoughts on this. On all of this."

"Don't pretend you haven't softened -"

"That's not the point, Lyna. Don't think I won't do whatever I have to do -"

"That's exactly why I'm asking you. Neither of us can say for sure what's about to happen; we're not the first people to attempt something like this, certainly, but apart from the records of failures, none of us will know what's ahead. But you and I both have seen magic go wrong. I'm not talking about blood magic. I'm talking about losing control. I'm talking about really, really wrong. You'll know and I'll know the moment when that happens. And I need you there to force my hand if it has to be forced. I need you there to act if I can't." She stopped and stood up straight, adjusting her sleeve where it had leaned against the wall, held her arm there as she spoke, "I trust you with this, Fenris."

He reached out and put his hand on top of the one that held her arm, and nodded his head almost reverently. Letting her go, he turned and walked away.

Mahariel rubbed her arm with the hand that he had cupped. She looked down at the grass beneath her bare feet, curling her toes against the green, the cool, the smooth, and thought about the implications of what she had just done.

She could not stop him. She knew this, and that was why she had asked him to do it. But if something - anything - went wrong, there was no turning back. Indeed, there should not have been any turning back. But with Fenris' blade beside hers, no amount of subtle reasoning would stop him if the unthinkable occurred. It was necessary, she knew, and it also made her afraid.

Maybe she should be afraid, she thought. Maybe she should have been more afraid this entire time.


	39. She Reached Across the Bed

"Do you know that you're beautiful?" Anders said to her, brushing her long brown hair away from her face.

"I've been told once or twice," she said playfully, and laughed. He feigned dejection, and she grinned, touching his nose to hers, and then pushed their lips together. He kissed her greedily, lips wet with wine and passion, and his fingers grabbed at the flesh of her hips, pulling their bodies closer together in bed.

"I missed you," he breathed.

"Heard that one once or twice as well," Mahariel teased, and bit his earlobe gently, pressing her cheek against his bare neck. She took a deep breath and relaxed against him. "I, um, I spoke to Fenris."

He jolted back slightly and gave her a disapproving frown. "Is this really the time, Lyna?"

"Anders, please."

"Fine."

"I asked him to sit in on the ritual -"

"Lyna!"

"- Just in case, Anders."

Anders sat up and pulled his hair away from his eyes, sheets falling down from his bare chest. Mahariel, dislodged in the process, sat up beside him and forced her gaze upon him.

"He will use this, I'm sure. He will look for any little thing, any little reason -"

"He will not," Mahariel said firmly, holding the blankets to cover her. She reached across the bed to the nightstand and retrieved a half-empty glass of wine; whether it had been hers or Anders was irrelevant. She drank it down and replaced the empty glass.

Anders gave her that thin-lipped look. "And how do you know that for certain?"

"Because," she said sternly, "I will also be there, lest you forget, and because I know him.

"Oh, you know him, do you."

Mahariel stayed silent, blinking slowly. She returned his thin-lipped stare. Taking a deep breath through her nose, she insisted, "You have to trust me. If you don't trust me, there's no way for us to do this."

"I trust you," Anders said, "I don't trust him as far as I can throw him. And he may be small, but I'm positive I can't throw him far."

The humor was comforting to Mahariel, but in some way, she feared he was only deflecting. She shook off the dire feeling in her stomach and said, "Believe me. He won't do anything rash. But he might be the only one rash enough to stop the whole thing if something goes amiss."

"Well I can't disagree with that. He'll definitely stop the whole thing."

Mahariel rolled her eyes. "You know as well as I do that one person out of four who's biased in the other direction is the closest thing we're going to get to someone unbiased on such short notice. And anyway, you of all people should want to keep this as, er, clean as possible. Given what we're working with."

"An abomination, and blood magic."

"Well, when you put it like that," she said, and pushed him playfully against his bony chest.


	40. It Feels Like Everything

After that, it was just a matter of waiting for lyrium. There was no way to avoid the use of blood magic entirely, as Mahariel understood - she was no mage, but Anders seemed to trust Delia from an arm's length, and she gathered that the blood would be used to draw the spirit out. Mahariel had seen enough to trust her wits, and trust her people, but she wanted to make the rite as safe as possible for all involved. She remembered Connor, remembered the lengths she had had to go to to be certain that the boy would come away unscathed. She remembered how many missteps could have thrown her off of the path, or killed the boy. She knew that this would be worse.

Which was why she was crouched behind a rock just outside of Alamar, waiting for a supplier. She has gotten in touch with a disgraced templar who was offering up the last of her own personal lyrium supply in exchange for an exorbitant amount of gold, but at this point, given the stakes, money was no object. However, Mahariel could not be sure it wasn't a ruse - what templar would surrender the last of her lyrium, not knowing if she would ever be able to get more? Perhaps the soldier thought she would be able to double her supply with the gold Mahariel was offering - there certainly was enough to buy it if there were more lyrium to be bought. So Mahariel hid, to make sure the templar, if there were even a templar, did not come surrounded by other soldiers with sharp swords. But her haunches ached, her back cramped, and every time she tried to quietly shuffle into a more comfortable position, she seemed to sound like a herd of elephants. Had her armour always been this noisy? She sighed and tried to quietly shuffle her chainmail around on her shoulders underneath her pauldrons. It seemed to bite into her skin despite the extra shift she wore beneath the mail for exactly that reason.

Behind her, she heard Fenris snicker.

"Oh shut it, you," Mahariel hissed in the quiet evening, her voice making more noise than her armour ever had. Perhaps she hadn't been as loud as thought.

"My apologies," Fenris breathed. "But here; you're going to tear your hair right from your head," and he leaned forward to untangle a lock from the straps that held her sheathe to her back, straps that wound around to the front of her torso and nearly knocked her off balance when he tugged a little too sharply, but he saw her stumble, and pressed his hands flat against her back to keep her righted.

Mahariel sighed again at herself and muttered, "When did I get so old?"

"The first moment you had time to sit down."

She could not argue with that, nor could she argue with the elf warrior's hands remaining on her back while they waited. She felt guilty, but did not protest when he moved to massage her shoulders as best as he could around her armour.

Instead, she only remarked, "Do your legs hurt as much as mine?"

"Possibly more," and his answer reassured her.

She was letting her eyes slip shut and her head was beginning to list toward his hand on her neck when she saw a woman in templar armour walk past their boulder, her head scanning back and forth along the road. She seemed to be utterly alone; not smart on an island known for its raider population, but definitely the behavior of an addict.

"That must be her," Fenris breathed, his voice a low rumble in the quiet. "Shall we introduce ourselves?"

"Do let's," Mahariel remarked, and once the templar was past them, she stood and straightened, rolling her shoulders quickly before announcing her presence. The woman had not supplied her name to Mahariel through their correspondence, as Mahariel had not supplied her own, so the Warden Commander called out, "Ho, Lady Templar. I believe we have arranged to meet?"

The templar whipped around to face Mahariel, hands reaching reactively for her sword before her mind caught up with her body and the templar seemed to remember that was indeed why she was wandering alone on a notoriously unsafe island in the middle of the night. But the woman waited to speak, narrowing her eyes as a breeze rustled the leaves in the trees that lined the path, a few being stripped from their branches and scuttling along the ground at Mahariel's feet. Fenris stood just behind her, body language signalling he was ready to defend her at a moment's notice, if Mahariel herself could not handle the templar.

"Indeed," the templar finally spoke. "I believe we have." Though her voice was heavy with skepticism, her body seemed to relax.

Mahariel jingled a pouch of coins hanging at her hip. "Shall we dispense with the formalities?"

The woman nodded, but made no move to retrieve her lyrium. Mahariel took a step closer.

"Do we have a problem?" the Warden Commander asked.

The templar shook her head, and began to reach inside the thick cumberbund around her waist. She pulled out a brown leather pouch, and from inside Mahariel could hear bottles clinking. The sound alone made her feel uneasy. Something about the substance set her teeth on edge, but it was necessary.

The woman reached out with the bag in her hand, but then pulled it back toward her, pressing it against her chest. Mahariel noticed the woman's face was pale and waxy, and not just from the weak moonlight. Mahariel's hopes sunk. This woman was exactly what the Warden Commander had thought - a templar seeking out a bigger stash than the one she currently possessed, but unwilling to surrender what she had to get it.

"Blast it," Mahariel breathed into the wind, and Fenris put a reassuring hand on her arm. "Look," she said to the templar woman, "I understand. You can keep -"

"I don't want to keep them," the templar snapped, but more at herself than at Mahariel. "I want them gone. I never want to do this again. I -" a look, not of anger, but of horror, seemed to cross the woman's face, and it was not a look Mahariel was going to let slide.

"What's wrong?"

"Something is happening."

"Happening?" Mahariel took another step closer, now just an arm's reach from from the templar.

"There's… bad lyrium."

Mahariel turned back to Fenris who shook his head at first.

"...Bad how?"

"I don't… I can't… It changes them."

And then Fenris said, "Meredith," and his reassuring hand on Mahariel's arm became a worried squeeze.

"Meredith was the first," the templar woman agreed. "But there's more. Lots more. Too many. I…" she thrust the bag at Mahariel. "I can't stay like this. I - I - I know this batch is good, it's from before. It's all I have left, you have to trust me. But I don't want to take it. I don't want anymore. Don't want to need the new stuff. I don't want to end up like - like - like -" She shook the sack, the vials clinking inside. "Take it! Please, for the love of Andraste, take it from me!"

Fenris reached past Mahariel with the hand that had clutched her arm, his left hand now resting on her right shoulder as he snatched the pouch from the shaking templar. Mahariel went to her belt and undid the straps that held the bag of gold and offered it to the woman. With trembling hands, the templar woman emptied the pouch into her hands and gave a cursory count of the pieces before funneling them back into the bag and jamming it into her cumberbund. The templar gave one last, longing look at the sack in Fenris' hand, now held protectively near his waist. Mahariel watched the woman's fingers flex indecisively before the templar pushed past the elves and went back the way she had come.

After a few moments, Mahariel turned around, watching the templar stalk back toward the shore, the same way Mahariel and Fenris themselves had come. She must have taken a ship, Mahariel figured. Mahariel wondered if the templar had come all this way alone.

"Poor woman," the Warden Commander uttered as she turned back to Fenris, who hoisted the bag and offered it to Mahariel.

"Will this be enough?" he asked her.

"I don't imagine so, no. But I have other contacts."

She saw the disapproval on his face and she smiled weakly, shaking her head to say, "I'm doing what I have to." Mahariel secured the pouch to her belt where the gold had been; the lyrium seemed strangely heavy, seemed to move through the air more slowly than the rest of Mahariel's body, seemed to halt the air - the time - around it. Cocking her head to the side, Mahariel paused and reached for Fenris' hand. She held it up in the pale moonlight, studying the white veins that traced his skin. Without thinking, she ran a slender finger along one, tracing a path along the inside of his arm from elbow to armpit, where the flesh was exposed outside of his armour. His flesh rippled in a wave behind the trail of her fingertips, a wave that continued down his spine, warming him in the cool night air.

"You're not going to flay me alive for my lyrium, are you?" he asked, tone of his voice low, subtle.

"Certainly not alive," Mahariel answered, and a smile played from her lips to his. "What does it feel like?" she asked, keeping her hand on his arm.

He didn't tell her that sometimes it felt like it was killing him, burning him away slowly, a corrosive thing that fought with his own mind for control. He didn't tell her that sometimes it felt like he was invincible, sometimes it took away his fear even when he knew he should be afraid, made him feel like time was slowing down and giving him the precious seconds he needed to act in combat when he otherwise would be a dead man. He didn't tell her that maybe part of the reason he feared and hated mage so much was that, if he could feel these things just by having lyrium tap-tap-tapped into his brown skin, even so many years ago, could still feel these things so strongly now, maybe stronger even as though the substance itself was replicating within him, becoming stronger, making him stronger, making him something more than he had ever been, than he ever should have been, if he could feel these things from a superficial application of the stuff, then the mages who took it into their body and converted it into mana and shot it back out with power ten-, a hundred-, a thousand-fold were horrifying, were unstoppable.

He didn't tell her that.

He didn't, and he did.

"It feels like everything."


	41. She Had to Let Go

The next morning, Mahariel insisted they couldn't do this anymore. It was wrong, she told him; she'd told him that before.

Then why did it keep happening, he asked.

She didn't have an answer.

But he didn't push her. He couldn't know how she felt, and at the same time, he knew exactly how she felt. Torn. He knew what it was to feel torn. He didn't blame her for what she did - how could he? He acknowledged at some level that it was his own fault, maybe not as much as hers, but he was no innocent party here. He was the one who took the longing in her eyes as a queue to push his lips to hers under a moonlit sky. He was the one who had learned the places under her ears, between her neck and her hair, to run his mouth to make her breathe the word, "yes." He had those same places. But she did not have the places in her heart that he had; the places he'd always denied until they were tugged at, bent out of shape like thin wires first pulled by Hawke and now by her. He did not think those places would ever retake their original shapes again.

He was not sure he wanted them too, even if they hurt.

* * *

Some of the lyrium they acquired came from the remnants of Circles with whom Mahariel had good rapport, either by virtue of her stopping the Fifth Blight from spreading to their homelands, or her diplomacy with magical dealings. Between that and a few more midnight lyrium deals, it was only weeks before there was enough lyrium in the Keep to outfit a small mage rebellion of her own. But this lyrium had a stranger purpose.

Delia said it would be best to prepare the room beforehand, so that nothing would have to be done on the morning of the rite. Morning, she said, would be best, if only because they would be more aware, more awake, and their bellies would be full from breakfast. So Mahariel agreed. Full stomachs and conscious minds seemed like the best plan for even the sketchiest of rituals, that was not something she could argue with.

So they shut off a section of the library and cleared out the long, wide tables, had them moved to a storage room in the basement next to the wine cellar. The room offered plenty of space, it was quiet, and the windows were high on walls. It would serve as well as any other room could. They agreed on a date some three mornings hence, so that Delia could run through the ritual a few more times, and once or twice with Anders, so that he would know what to expect - though how could he really know? It didn't matter. More preparation was always better than less, especially when so much was going to be inherently left to chance.

Mahariel paced in the library. The closed off section seemed colder than the rest, more foreboding. She reasoned that it was because the had not lit a fire in the grate here, something she could do with ease, and because there were no surfaces for light to reflect off anymore, barring the backs of bookcases, the walls, and the floor. But even yet, it felt darker than it should. Felt deeper than it should. And she found herself unwilling to leave. Unable.

Arms crossed over her chest, she walked the length of the room once, twice, a dozen times again. She could hear the sounds of her bare feet, could feel the change in the stones when she heard the change in the sound of her footsteps. She had learned them all by now and she walked with rhythm, hearing a sort of music in the sounds of her footfalls, the swish of her hair over her shoulders and down her back, swaying with the same momentum that made her shift swing around her ankles.

And then there was a second set of footsteps. Bare, like hers; she could tell.

"Fenris?" she said it like a question, but there wasn't a doubt in her mind. She turned and it was him, completely out of armor. He wore a green short-sleeved tunic and thick black leggings that wrapped around the arches of his feet; it was the machinations of what he wore beneath his armor. Indeed, though his outfit looked simple and bare, she saw the places where the straps attached or had rubbed wear marks; small loops of thread where the underside of his plate could lock into place more securely. Even still, he looked so bare, so vulnerable. His soft hazel eyes watched his own feet, his silver hair fell over his forehead and down along his cheeks. He looked plaintive, apologetic. When he picked his head up, his eyes were glossy.

Without thinking, Mahariel went to him, put her hands on the sides of his face. He turned away, but not enough to break from her grasp.

She didn't ask him out loud, but her eyes pleaded with him to know what was wrong, as she bobbed her head to meet his gaze. But he lowered his eyes, closed them, touched the tip of his nose to hers, and she knew.

"Oh, Fenris."

"I apologize. After… Justice, I tried to… forget. But I couldn't. Mahariel -"

"Don't, Fenris -"

"I love you."

"You shouldn't."

"I doesn't matter," he shifted his face, brushing his nose against both sides of hers, his hair falling against her cheeks.

"I'm sorry," she breathed, "I should have tried to… I don't know…"

"No, don't. This is…"

"This is no one's fault," Mahariel quieted his thought. "But I can't… we can't…"

"I know," Fenris sighed. "Not anymore." And he kissed her, long and slow and unforgiven.

Mahariel moaned softly against his mouth, wanting to break away and not wanting to at all. But her strength found her and she pulled back, slowly, her lips stealing small kisses from his for several seconds after she'd started to draw back. She touched her cheek to his and slipped her arms around his neck.

She had to let go. She had to. She…

"Lyna?"


	42. She Was Not Sure

Anders stood in the entrance to the closed-off portion of the library. His eyes seemed simultaneously hollow and full. Hollow with hurt, full of confusion and pain and something like rage.

Mahariel drew back from Fenris who respectfully took a step away.

"What…" Anders lips formed, but before the thought even escaped his lips, he changed his mind. "No. I don't even want to know." The sound of his voice was low, threatening, but even with her head spinning, Mahariel knew it was an empty threat, as the mage turned on his heel and walked away, throwing behind him his open palm as though dismissing the elves entirely.

Mahariel watched, unsure whether or not to follow. Her eyes flitted from the floor to the doorway to Fenris.

He reached out and put a hand on her small shoulder. "Go to him, if you want to explain." There was grit in his voice, and Mahariel wanted to reach into her chest and tear out her heart. She wanted to rip it in half and offer a piece to each.

Which was when it occurred to her that what she and Fenris had been doing was not as simple as she had been telling herself all along. It never had been. Not from the moment he had looked her in the eyes at The Hanged Man, and she had told him it was a long story, and he had had the time.

She bid Fenris leave her and he nodded and obeyed, and Mahariel sat on the floor in the library room with her back in a corner, and surveyed her kingdom.

It was empty.

* * *

It was Anders who returned some time later. She couldn't read his face, but he sat down beside her, his knees pulled up to his chest. He stared straight forward, and he said nothing - but he said nothing. He didn't shout, or cry, or accuse her of anything.

Mahariel didn't know if that was good, or if it meant he didn't care anymore, but she was thankful for the silence. She noticed, as she snatched a glance of him out of the corner of her eye, uneager to make eye contact, that he was dressed in different clothes; black, feathery pauldrons on his shoulders, black robes along his body, black boots buckled almost to his knees. If she had looked closer, she would have seen the signs of repairs done by her own laundry staff, but for now she only noticed his darkness. She had never seen him like this - no, she had, but only as the weak, stumbling creature who fell into her bed, a tall skeleton crusted in earth and sweat. Mahariel risked taking a longer look and found his own eyes now fixed on hers.

A weak, sad smile flicked across his lips and then vanished so quickly she was not sure that she'd ever seen it at all.

"Anders…" she began slowly.

He looked away from her, at the space between his feet, and said, "Only if you want to tell me."

"That is more than I deserve," she mumbled, chin resting on her knees.

"Deserve?" Anders remarked, his voice stronger now, "Do you know what you deserve? By rights, you deserve be Queen of Ferelden. I'm almost certain you should be First Warden by virtue of your tenacity alone."

"That's not -"

"Which says nothing of what you've done for me, which says nothing still of all of the many things you've done for undeserving," he let the word slide with a playful poison from his tongue, "people all over Thedas."

"That doesn't -"

"You have helped the most beautiful sinners this world has ever known. The least I - the man who abandoned you twice - can do is shut the fuck up for once and listen to you."

Mahariel began to cry.


	43. She Tossed the Envelope Down

She told him everything, from hiding the alchemical recipe she had procured for him from Fenris in her room at The Hanged Man, to when he showed up just days before Anders himself had at the Keep, to the past few weeks. She left out only her new epiphany, the part where she cared for the elf in a way she wasn't anything like ready to admit. Not to herself, certainly not to Anders. She was hoping now that it was moot, that it would be just another scar on the puckered tissue of her heart.

Anders pressed a hand to Mahariel's knee, and she laid her own hand on top of his. He remained silent, and Mahariel wondered if perhaps she had said too much.

"Anders -"

"This is probably going to kill me, you know."

Mahariel froze. Anders' eyes were surveying the empty space in front of them, the place where they would perform the rite where the mage would be freed from Justice.

"Delia is very smart," he went on, "and incredibly confident. She's told me everything. I know her methods - and they're not as objectionable as I perhaps wanted them to be," he said with a sad smile. "But there are only two of us, two mages, and who knows how much I'll even be capable of contributing. She is strong. Experienced. But colleges of mages, with and without the help of templars, with and without years of research and loads of resources, have never succeeded at this. And there are four of us."

"You know," Mahariel said slowly, "there were only four people atop Fort Drakon. And they ended a Blight."

"And one of them died."

Shit, Mahariel thought. He's right.

* * *

Fenris was hovering over Mahariel's desk when she returned to her rooms.

"You've received some letters," he said, without turning around to face her.

"I've always received some letters," Mahariel moaned, kicking the door shut behind her, glad that Anders had remained behind in the library even if it was because he was caught up in a fit of impending doom.

"This looks important," he turned and held out a crisp, white envelope - expensive paper, Mahariel could tell, bleached spotless and rolled smooth. It wasn't any old paper, and as Mahariel reached out for it, she felt a growing sense of dread in the pit of her belly. She took it from Fenris' outstretched hand and turned it over. Borne upon it was a royal seal.

"Son of a bitch," Mahariel said, low at first, and then, "Son of a bitch!" She tossed the envelope down on the table and turned quickly away from it, tangling her fingers tight in her hair, pulling hard so that the skin on her temples grew taught.

"What is it," Fenris asked, crossing his arms over his chest.

Her eyes locked on his, and with fury in her voice, she growled, "That bastard went to the queen."


	44. She Didn't Make Him

She paced the floor, then turned and paced again. Delia, Anders, and Fenris all watched as she made laps, one fist on her hips, the other over her mouth, her eyes directed firmly at the ground. Mahariel had been quiet for some time, pacing the floor of her chambers. Occasionally, her eyes would dart to the letter, now free of its pristine white envelope, and then to the three figures watching her, and then back to the floor.

No one was willing to break the silence.

"This is ridiculous," Mahariel began to mutter under his breath. "He's doing this to spite me, you know that? And do you want to know the worst part?" It didn't matter if they did or not, she went on anyway, "So is she. She never liked me. Why would she? Maker, I never met a more selfish…"

Mahariel paused in her pacing, rolled her shoulders, looked up and at all three of them. She pointed fiercely at the letter on the table. "That is madness."

"I…" Anders started, squinting an eye. Fenris only crossed his arms.

"Do you know what I think?" Mahariel asked, and now it was a question begging an answer.

"What," asked Fenris flatly.

"Fuck 'em. If that bastard wants to go to the queen about this? Well, then, the queen will just have to come to me. This is my blasted arling."

* * *

Anders eyes lit on what could only be described as a pile of lyrium.

The dust that they had been sent was confined to jars of varying sizes and shapes, the liquid, recovered mostly from templars, was bound together in pouches tied with string. The lot of it, piled on a small dais Mahariel had moved into the empty library chamber, was in actuality less than a foot high, less than a foot around too, but considering what that foot of space contained, and how quickly it was about to be used, it was nothing short of fantastic.

"Are you sure you want to do this?" Mahariel asked him, over his shoulder.

He bobbed his head, but said nothing.

She approached him, coming to his side and placing one hand on the small of his back. "Are you ready?" Mahariel watched his face contort as he wrestled with an answer. The mage still had an evening to prepare; they were going to begin tomorrow. Everyone, as much as they had them, had gotten their affairs in order and freed a space of two days. No one knew exactly how long it would take, but since Delia and Mahariel had some level of daily responsibility, they thought it best clear a space of time where no one would - or could - require them.

"I guess it's now or never," Anders said softly. He brought the heel of his hand to his side and rubbed it hard.

"Is it…" Mahariel asked. Anders only nodded.

The Blight. It was almost as though his body knew that something was coming, something was about to change in him, and every now and again, the man would wince, flinch, as though trying to flick himself away from the blackness that was consuming him. He looked better, he had put on weight, but the blackness had only grown.

In Mahariel's head was the dim, constant throb of The Calling, worse every day. After this, Mahariel told herself, staring at the softly glowing stash of lyrium before her, after this…

After this, what? What was she to do? Heed the Archdemon's song in her brain? Retreat quietly into the wildness?

No. Not that, but something. Turn her everyday duties over to Anissa; the girl was plenty capable. Go into retirement, or something of the sort. She almost didn't know how to handle the thought; she figured she would be long dead by now. She had prepared for her own death, in a real and concrete way, twice. Once, when the Blight first entered her, and again, when she lofted her sword high to slay the Archdemon. And twice, she had been denied. Needless to say, Mahariel hadn't put too many thoughts toward what she was going to do when old age set in.

She found the thought more frightening than when she had confronted her own end.

"I suppose we should get some rest," she found herself saying, turning away from the dais.

"Wait -" he turned around to face her, reached out, quickly grabbed her wrist. "I'd rather not… Look, I know things have been… between us…" he ran his free hand over his hair. "I don't want to spend tonight alone."

She didn't make him.


	45. She Knew That That Was Her Role

In the morning, Mahariel untangled her limbs from Anders', took a hot bath, and ate a hearty breakfast. Anders rose later; she let him sleep. He was, even in the best of scenarios, going to have the hardest time of all of them. She made sure there was plenty of food left over for him, she sent down for another pot of hot tea while he washed up. A chill had permeated the Keep in the night, and whether it was brought on by the onset of fall or the onset of fate Mahariel felt it all the same. She chewed at her cuticles as Anders ate slowly, she sipped her cooling tea, she pushed crumbs around on her plate. Mahariel thought maybe she should stretch out, head to the training grounds and give her sword a few practice swings, but she wanted to put the possibility of putting any real swinging far out of her mind. She wondered absently if they should have added a third mage to their party, someone not acting or being acted upon who could put up magical defenses, but the only mages she could trust were forever away, for all intents and purposes. She'd already tried contacting Wynne. She had good mages who worked in the Keep but she had no rapport with them, and didn't want to push boundaries with something so strange on such short notice.

After all, Ladomire had already gone to Anora on suspicion of her harboring blood mages.

Removing her fingernail from her teeth, Mahariel said, "I should probably dress," and Anders looked up from his mug. There was a wash of emotion on his face as he bowed his head in ascent, and then cautiously turned back to his tea.

Mahariel brushed and braided her long brown hair, pinning it up on her head. She put on her thick woolen shift, she put on her leggings, she put on her mail, she put on her boots, her plate, her gloves. She wondered if maybe it were too much for playing the part of a glorified executioner - when it came down to it, she knew that that was her role - but she removed none of it, only slipped on her Warden's tunic over it all, belted it, and made herself stand straight to strap Starfang to her back.

Anders came into the bedroom where she dressed, and to her surprise, he smiled.

"That's how I remember you," he said. "That's how I knew you best."


	46. I Think He's Brought the Queen

It was dark but for candles at the corners of the room. They kept the flames low. A bookshelf had been moved into the space that they had been using as a doorway; the large cases now made the rearranged section of the Keep's library a completely closed-off room of its own with no way in or out, not until the four people contained within it were finished.

To whatever end to which they came.

Mahariel and Fenris stood along the walls near the bookcases, keeping everyone inasmuch as they were keeping curious onlookers out. Mahariel ran her tongue nervously over her teeth as she watched Delia prepare all sorts of arcane equipment on the dais, and watched Anders watch Delia. The elven warrior woman had her hands crossed in front of her, but she was using her guardly pose to worry at one hand's gloves with the other, picking at the small joints in the metal and pits in the scale. Fenris leaned over and touched her elbow. Mahariel looked up into his large eyes, and there she found real empathy. It may only have been for her; Fenris' dislike of Anders had waned barely a hair's breath, only enough for him to understand what Mahariel was going through, but the kindness was there, and Mahariel took it willingly. She took in a deep breath, puffing out her lungs as far as they would go, straining against her armor, and then breathed it out audibly.

Anders turned to catch her gaze quickly, giving her an uneasy smile, but a smile all the same. She returned it as best she could, but when the mage turned back to face the dais, Mahariel squeezed shut her eyes and swallowed the pain in her chest.

It must have been a considerable length of time for Delia to have gotten everything set up, but to Mahariel it was only minutes before the mage asked, "Are we all ready?"

"Indeed," offered Fenris, and Anders bowed his head, but Mahariel's voice caught in her throat and so she simply cast down her eyes to the floor, hoping that was enough of an ascent for Delia to continue.

"Alright then. Let's get moving."

Mahariel thought about stopping the whole thing. Thoughts raced through her head - she could run up there and smash all of the arcane doo-dads Delia had placed before her. She could grab Anders and run, no, she didn't have to, this was her keep, this was her land, she could just say no, she could -

But it wasn't her decision. It was Anders', and, with his back to her, he stood bravely, already encompassed by a subtle but intensifying blue light.

Mahariel resolved herself not to watch, keeping her eyes fixed firmly on the floor in front of her. She heard Delia speaking, but what language she spoke, Tevene or maybe something more ancient, Mahariel could not say. It might have been the common tongue, warped by whispers and the storm-like buzzing that filled the room.

It was all happening so fast - she had thought that the thing would be drawn out, slowly, tedious, but there was a ripple of energy through the air, and then a crack, like the flick of a whip and the whole room seemed to alight with some kind of fire - even Fenris beside her flickered into ethereal being, the web of lyrium that marked his skin glowing with tantalizing phosphorescence.

And then there was a whisper - "Mahariel," it said, and Mahariel's eyes shot open wide.

"What…" she breathed, and picked her head up.

"Mahariel," it came again, and the breath was sucked out of the Warden Commander's chest, until, "It's Anissa… Can I, er, can you move the bookcase?"

Mahariel nearly went limp with relief. She scuttled over to the edge where wall and case met and pressed her nose to the gap. "Anissa, really. Can this wait?"

"I know, Arlessa, you said, but… I don't think it can."

"Well, out with it, girl!" she said in a panicked hiss, her eyes darting from the thin sliver of light from the next room to the mages, surrounded by light, and back.

"Lord Ladomire is here, ma'am -"

"Fuck Ladomire!"

But Anissa went on, undeterred. "It's just that - Lady Mahariel, he's brought an army. I think he's brought the queen."


	47. And So She Didn't

"That bitch!" Mahariel spat. Fenris overheard and briefly took his eyes off of the mages to go to the Warden Commander's side. He placed his hand on her back as Mahariel hastily relayed the situation to her. She knew she had to go - as much as she trusted Anissa with the Keep, this was not some everyday coming-and-going. Mahariel would have to go talk the Queen of Ferelden down off of a ledge. Or push her off of one.

But that would leave Fenris here alone with Delia and Anders. She hardly doubted he his ability to, well, handle the situation should the need arise, but the man had no love for what was happening right now. Could she trust him alone here not to jump to conclusions? So she put the question to him straight.

"Lyna. You shouldn't even have to ask," he said.

And so she didn't.

She wanted to tell Anders goodbye, but she didn't want to interrupt, and she didn't have time. Mustering old, familiar strength, she shoved several hundred pounds worth of bookcase a few feet out of the way, making a gap just large enough for herself and all her armor to fit through, and entered the library proper, but not before wedging the case back into its wall formation. She took a deep breath, ran her gloved hands over the front of her armor, and hastily descended to the gates of Vigil's Keep.

She was suddenly very glad for having donned her full regalia.

* * *

"Ah, there she is. The conspirator," Lord Ladomire's voice greeted her before Mahariel could even blink the sunlight from her eyes.

Mahariel put a hand to her brow and answered, "Ladomire," intentionally leaving off his appellation. Eyes adjusting, she caught sight of Anora just over his shoulder and some feet behind. "My queen," she said, and gave a perfunctory bow.

"Warden Commander Mahariel," said Lady Anora, "or shall I address you as Arlessa?"

"I asked myself that every day," Mahariel offered, glibly. "I see we have company," and she indicated the half-dozen or so rows of troops behind the lord and lady. It wasn't quite and army, or indeed, even a whole regiment, and she doubted it would be enough to breach the Keep if it were well-fortified; if she could lock it down in time. But it was definitely enough to kill every occupant of the place once they were inside.

"Lord Ladomire has informed me of some disconcerting things he believes to be going on within your walls here, Warden Commander." Anora did not use Mahariel's name, and the Dalish woman got the feeling that she was doing it on purpose but she couldn't be sure; Mahariel's feelings for the Queen of Ferelden were hardened by the past, and rusted over by time.

Mahariel jutted her jaw out. "I'll bet he has."

"Surely you must know, Warden Commander - " Anora was doing it on purpose, Mahariel decided, " - that we cannot have… this sort of thing… within the bounds of this fine kingdom?"

Ah, well. There it was.

"No, indeed," said Mahariel brightly, walking past Ladomire as though he were just a feature of the landscape to meet Anora's gaze, the sun glinting off of the queen's blonde hair; she almost seemed not to need a crown. Probably she knew it, and that was why she presented herself bare-headed. "That's why it's not happening. Though one such as Lord Ladomire cannot be expected to be able to interpret the difference between the magic the former Circle openly condoned and taught and the obviously treacherous and fearful thing that is blood magic, distinct though they are."

"Now, Lady Mahariel. It's is a known fact that one of the mages in your employ was accused of blood magic and sent to the Kirkwall Gallows."

"Indeed," countered Mahariel, "as were so many other innocent mages. I do believe that is why they have had a rebellion."

Anora's eyebrows lifted and she she smiled, granting the point to Mahariel. Her open gaze was a question to Ladomire: had they come all this way for this? One accused but unproven blood mage? Well, Mahariel wasn't about to give them more - they still clearly had no idea Anders had found refuge here - which, if she needed to push the point, didn't matter; Anders had been, and, it could be said, was again, a Grey Warden. He wouldn't be happy to hear that, but he had once been conscripted, and no honest moves could be made against him now. The fact that they were currently performing a ritual which stretched the ideas of what was and wasn't blood magic - and if she were honest, it certainly was, despite the fact that the blood belonged only to Delia and perhaps Anders, she didn't know - was not something Mahariel currently felt inclined to share.

Anora's question to Ladomire went unanswered. He fought his brain for words and sputtered, "But… the Grey Wardens…

"Have their own system of government which has been respected in Ferelden, and indeed, most of civilized Thedas, for more than a thousand years." And it was Anora who said it, not Mahariel. "But," Anora went on, and Mahariel's heart sank, "I wouldn't mind meeting this mage."

Well, shit.

A lie. Any lie would do. Anora had already put Ladomire in his place; surely she would believe anything that Mahariel fed her now. Shit shit shit. Why wouldn't she be able to produce a mage who lived on the premises? What could she possibly -

"Unfortunately, You Highness, I'm afraid that won't be possible."

Anissa. Mahariel hadn't even noticed her assistant follow her out into the courtyard. But of course she had. The young woman clutched a little appointment book and looked stern, flipping through the pages, giving the queen both due respect and checking her sources. "It seems as though one of our Wardens was grievously wounded in combat, my queen, and Delia, being our most skilled and valued mage, was sent to tend to his injuries. To disrupt such a procedure may result in the death of a Grey Warden. You would be free to wait, however," Anissa snapped the little book shut and gave a polite bow, adding softly, "my queen."

Maker's breath. It wasn't even a lie. Well, it was a little bit of a lie, but of all the lies, that one had the most truth in it that Mahariel had ever heard. Anissa was good. Very good. She would have to remember that.

So Mahariel crossed her arms and smiled proudly. "Indeed," she punctuated her assistant's information, "my queen."

"Well," said Anora, looking hotly at Lord Ladomire, and then back at her troops, "I think we're done here." She was not the kind to wait for anyone or anything.

"But Lady Anora!" Ladomire protested, his carefully coiffed hair going amiss.

"Unless the lord would like blood on his own hands," Mahariel ventured.

"Indeed not. Lord Ladomire, I demand to know just what you thought you were doing bringing me here on such a baseless accusation." The queen crossed her arms and looked down on the man; Anora was not a short woman.

"If I may, Lady Anora," and Mahariel threw down her trump card, "I believe Lord Ladomire would like my job."

"I see. After an arling of our own, are we?" the queen pressed him.

"Well, I never!" Lord Ladomire protested.

"I should say so," Anora rebuked. "You, never. Thank you very much for your time, Lady Mahariel. Your services have been, and hopefully will always be, appreciated. Soldiers, move out. This is wholly ridiculous," she muttered. "Lord Ladomire, you are quite lucky I was already in Amaranthine. I would hate to have made a trip from Denerim for - for this," she spat last word at him. "I will be in my coach. I expect you will be in yours."

And the Queen of Ferelden was gone. Only Lord Ladomire was left standing before Mahariel, seething, his face pink with rage.

"This isn't over, knife-ear."

"Oh, I think it is, shem." She gave a high-pitched whistle, summoning her own fortress guards. They approached Mahariel and stood tall, clapping their right fists over their chests at attention. "If you wouldn't mind removing him," she said, and the guards went to him, taking him by the arms to lead him away, "and never allowing him back. If he disputes it, well, I'll just have to speak to my old friend the queen."

Lord Ladormire was lead away, following the queen's troops and hurling obscenities at anyone who cared to listen. Mahariel did not. She only waited until the lord and troops were over the crest of the horizon, and then threw herself at Anissa, taking the woman in her arms and squeezing her tightly.

"Lady Mahariel, please…" Anissa breathed.

"You're amazing. You deserve a raise. You're getting a raise. Is there anything I can do for you?"

"Can you… stop squeezing me so hard?" her assistant sucked in a deep breath, straining against the confines of Mahariel's arms, her face almost as red as her hair.

"...Oh." She let Anissa go and smoothed the woman's sleeves. "Yes. Well. My apologies."

"No need," Anissa said, adjusting herself. "And I don't need anything, Lady Mahariel. The amusement of all this is reward enough," she said with a chuckle.

Mahariel eyed the young red-haired woman up and down. "You know, you remind me of someone…"

Just then, there was a cacophonous sound from inside the Keep, and Mahariel was shaken back into the heart of the situation.

"Anders," she breathed. "Son of a bitch." Mahariel fled back up the steps and into Vigil's Keep, leaving Anissa alone in the courtyard with her appointment book.


	48. And Just Like That, It Was Over

Breathless from exertion and panic, Mahariel shoved her way back into the sequestered section of the library, leaving the bookcase blockade open wide. All the candles in the room were extinguished and her eyes, bleached by sun, were struggling to adjust again to the dark of the room. Slowly, she began to make out Fenris' lyrium tattoos glowing in the center of the room near where the dais was - had been? she couldn't make out its shape in the shadows - his form hunched over, the elf on one knee. She saw the glint of his fine sword on the ground - no longer sheathed, just a bare blade; had he drawn it? Please no - and then Delia's blonde hair resolved itself in the dark. She, too, was near the ground, head bent down. Fenris turned and rose, and behind him, her eyes adjusting, she could see Anders lying on the cold, stone floor, one hand lying limp at his side, the other laying palm down on his belly. Fenris must have been holding Anders' blond head and his knees up off of the floor, Mahariel now realized; only when the elf rose did the prone mage take up a full six or more feet of ground space.

"No," Mahariel muttered, "no no no no no no no…"

Delia rose in the time room, putting out her hands to stop Mahariel.

Fenris blocked her, taking the Warden Commander into his arms and holding her back. "Stop, Lyna, stop. Please," he tried to calm her, pressing his hands to her face, smoothing her loosening hair with his thumb. "Lyna, stop. He's alive."

* * *

Mahariel pushed Fenris away gently and fell to her knees on the hard stone floor. She reached out and put her hands on Anders' chest. It was warm. She could feel his heartbeat, slow but present; she felt his breathing, shallow but steady. She knelt forward and pressed her cheek to his, the stubble scratching and pinching her. The mage's blond hair had come free of its tie and spread on the floor like water, and she ran her hands over it, through it, lifting up his head and resting it in her lap.

"Anders…" was all she said. He didn't stir.

"You should let him rest," Delia said, her voice cracking, and stood, smoothing her robes. Mahariel looked up and caught a glimpse of the long, dark gashes across the woman's palms; they looked old already, scabbed and tight, and whether Delia had healed them by some magic Mahariel could not say, but she was certain that she looked exhausted. Dark bags under Delia's eyes, cracked lips, sallow, wan skin, trembling fingers; Delia was spent. If anyone should be resting, it was her, Mahariel thought. Anders seemed perfectly content to lie here on the cold floor and Mahariel was perfectly content to lie beside him. Across the floor, Mahariel could see the dais, knocked over, surrounded by spent leather pouches and tiny shards of broken glass that used to be small bottles, vials, their cork tops scattered further still. Mahariel could not make out a single sparkle of lyrium in the mess.

"I can take him back to his room," Fenris offered, kneeling down once more.

"Wait," Mahariel said. "Did… did it work?" she begged. "Delia, did it work?"

Delia ran a dry tongue over her dry lips, voice rough like sand. "I… believe so. The rite went exactly as it should, it…" she stopped, sucking in her cheeks, desperately trying to work up any kind of moisture to bring to her mouth, her throat. She wiped her forehead with the back of her palm and swayed a bit. "Nothing went wrong. We should know for certain soon." Delia shook her head; she couldn't say anymore. "My lady," she said, and dismissed herself, walking unsteadily toward the opening Mahariel had made in the bookcases. She ran her hand along the wall to keep herself upright, and then she was gone.

Mahariel turned her face to Fenris, whose eyes were looking at the ground, at his sword. "Perhaps…" he began softly, slowly, "perhaps Delia speaks the truth, but I…" And then he stopped. "This is not the time." He stood, retrieving his blade and returning it to its rightful place. "Come. Let's get him to bed."

Hesitantly, Mahariel nodded, standing and moving away, allowing Fenris to scoop up the mage into his arms, and he followed Mahariel to what had been Anders' room when first he was conscripted. He had never stayed there since returning to the Keep, and the room seemed untouched, unchanged from a decade ago when the mage was decidedly pleased to have been given a room of his own, a single bed, and a door with a lock which no templars could undo. Fenris laid Anders down, gave Mahariel a small bow, and left.

And just like that, it was over. Mahariel went to the little desk, Anders desk, and sat. She put her face in her hands, and exhausted, worried, overjoyed, started to cry.

* * *

She must have fallen asleep like that, because the next thing she knew, it was evening, and she woke up to a soft hand on her back. She barely felt it through the layers of her armor, but it was just enough to stir her back to consciousness. Mahariel sat up quickly, pushing herself back in the chair, and looked up to find the soft eyes of Delia. The mage looked a bit haggard still; small scabs dotted her lips and her skin hadn't been restored to its full, beautiful porcelain aspect, but she looked better. And she was smiling. But...

"Delia," Mahariel greeted her and stood, rubbing her face with her hands, the drakeskin on the palms of her gloves rough and grippy.

"Mahariel… Can we talk?"

"Of course. Always."

Delia lead Mahariel to the corner of the room furthest from Anders. "I wanted to say this to you before Fenris had a chance. I don't know how much he understood about what happened."

Mahariel tipped her head and indicated that thus disclaimed, Delia could continue.

"The ritual… did work as planned. But something else happened, I think. I… I don't know if I can really explain this, Mahariel, but… Look. I know Anders told me Justice wasn't Justice anymore. He said there was something of vengeance in him. He blamed himself, and I'm not saying he was wrong, I just… I don't know what happened to Justice. When Justice left Anders' body, it wasn't… I told you I spent a lot of time in the Fade, and that's true. But I never saw a spirit like this. Not a spirit, or a demon." Delia rubbed her mouth with a knuckle, trying to put her thoughts in order, and Mahariel did everything in her power not to grab the girl and shake her and to demand she keep speaking.

"Delia. Please." Mahariel's eyes darted to Anders.

Delia cleared her throat, and lowered the tone of her voice. "Mahariel, you have to understand. I took Justice out of Anders and… you know he wasn't Justice anymore. I couldn't set him free in our world, and I couldn't send him back to the Fade. Not now, after so many years out of it, not after what he had become. Fenris had to… to put him down. But he was changed. He was… more real somehow, I don't know, I'm not explaining this well. There was something else to him. Something more. And I'm just stabbing in the dark, Mahariel, I have nothing to compare this to, but… I'm afraid he took some part of Anders will him. Maybe it was just that being inside of him for so long turned him into something new. Maybe it was a memory or a thought or… Blessed Antraste, Mahariel. I don't know. But when Fenris put it down, it died. Really died. And if there was something of Anders in there, it's gone."

Mahariel stumbled over her words. "I don't… I mean…"

Delia shook her head, taking Mahariel's gloved hands in her own, squeezing her small, bare fingers over Mahariel's plate and scale. "I don't fully understand either, Mahariel. But when Anders wakes up, he might… he might not be the whole person you knew before." The mage smiled weakly, and it looked more like pain, but she patted Mahariel on her forearm and turned to walk away.

The Dalish woman stood frozen in place until Delia's footsteps faded away down the hall. She ran the mage's words over and over in her brain. She thought Delia might know more than she was letting on; something in her word choice turned Mahariel's stomach, twisted her guts into knots.

He might not be the whole person you knew before.

Not the whole person.

Not whole.

Mahariel collapsed to her knees, the sound of plate on stone ringing like thunder in the tiny room, but Anders still did not stir. She pressed her forehead to the floor, laced her fingers together, covered the back of her head with her palms. Her chest tightened; she wanted to claw at it but she couldn't, wouldn't move, wanted to take her sword and ram it through her heart, but it was too far from her reach. She couldn't make the sound, but her lips traced the shape of the word, scraping against the rough rock below her, kissing it as she rounded the word with her mouth, around the taste of the bile backing up in her throat.

Tranquil.


	49. She Said

In her mind, she pictured it. She pictured that dark library room, a cave made of bookshelves and power, just after she had left. She tried to see what had happened. She imagined a thick, wet sort of power in the air, she imagined Delia, pulling at Anders, pulling at his innermost workings, dragging out the parasite that Justice had become. She imagined the smell of ozone, the crackle of power; she imagined Fenris in the corner, the elf not sure if this was indeed at all how it was supposed to happen.

She tried to think of the Justice she knew, but she realized that that wasn't the spirit, the demon, the entity, the thing that had been separated from Anders, but that was all she knew how to see. She watched it being dragged out of the mage, her mage, her healer, watched it come pouring out of his eyes and his nose and his mouth, and she saw Fenris draw his sword as the spirit, the thing took a more corporeal form than anyone had been expecting, she saw Fenris draw his sword and she saw the lyrium coursing over his brown skin and she saw the warrior cut the spirit down.

And she heard Anders scream.

That was what she saw in her mind as she charged down the hall to Fenris' quarters, that was what fueled her, powered her down the hall and through his door; if it had been locked, it wouldn't have mattered, it might have been for all she knew.

"You," she growled in a voice nothing like her own, thundering at Fenris who stood by the window. If she had been more cognizant, she would have realized that it almost seemed as though he were waiting for her. But her wits were not about her and she grabbed him by his collar, and though he was of a greater height than her, she drug him down and pulled his face to hers.

"You had no right," she spat. "You had no right to do that to him!" Mahariel's volume, her pitch was rising; the door to the hallway stood open and she could not have cared less. She shook Fenris, and his fingers wrapped around her wrists, but he made no move to stop her; only looked her dead in the eye, his jaw set.

His voice was quiet, but his words stopped her cold. "I know."

She let him go, but he kept his hands on her wrists as she pulled her arms into her chest. "You… what?"

"Lyna, listen to me. Delia spoke to you. I knew she would. What I did, I…" he shook his head. "It doesn't matter." His hands moved to her shoulders. "That thing, inside of him. It was the only thing I - it was the only thing anyone could have done."

"The only thing?" she gasped. "The only thing!"

"Yes, Lyna. The only thing. What would you have had me do? What would you have done if you had still been there? Delia could not manage it, she could not dispel or free it. Even her blood magic failed her. It had to be destroyed."

"But he -"

"I know. I think I knew it then, too. If I could have said for certain, do you think it would have stopped me? Should it have?" He slipped his hands from her shoulders to her elbows and held her back a bit. "What would you have done?" He touched her hair, his eyes darting across her face. "Hate me. I will understand. But know this - I am not sorry. That was why you wanted me there. That? Was what you could not have done."

"Lady Mahariel?" Anissa's soft whisper came from the doorway.

Mahariel spun around, breaking free of Fenris' grasp. Her eyes were red and damp.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt… He's awake."

* * *

Mahariel was running again, always running, and this time Fenris was hot on her heels. She still hadn't taken her armor off, hadn't had a moment's real rest, and she clanked and shuddered as her boots rang off of the stone. It wasn't far, but it seemed like a thousand miles, and Mahariel knew what a thousand miles felt like.

Why had she left him? She had been right there, could have been next to him when he woke. What had been his first thought, his first thought without Justice in almost a decade? She should have been there, should have -

But when Mahariel burst through the door Delia was already there at Anders' side, and Anders was sitting up in bed, his robes only slightly askew, and he was smiling.

Smiling.

"Lyna," he asked her in a calm, gentle tone, "what's wrong?"

In the doorway, she couldn't breathe. She couldn't tell. She approached him slowly, like he might attack at any moment, her hands reaching out and holding him back at the same time. But she took step after step closer to his bedside.

"Anders," she said softly, "how are you feeling?"

He kept smiling. "I… wonderful," he said. "Light." He looked up at Delia, and kept smiling.

Mahariel pulled off her gloves, let the drop to the floor with a solid clunk, and she reached out, and touched the sides of his face, touched his rough, auburn stubble, his course, dishwater blond hair.

"What's it like in there?" she asked him slowly, rubbing her thumbs along the creases in his forehead, creases that hadn't been there when they had first met.

"I might ask you the same thing."

He wasn't.

He was all there.

He was Anders.

Her hands fell from his face and she collapsed into his lap, her forehead pressed against his belly, and she laughed and cried at the same time. "It worked!" she said into the plush fabric of his robes. "Maker's breath, Delia, it worked!" She was nearly hysterical, taking Anders robes in her fists and clinging to them with a vengeance, not looking up to the woman at Anders' bedside but thanking her profusely.

Slowly, she picked up her head and murmured, "Oh, Andraste, Delia, you had me so worried, so scared…"

Mahariel turned her head to the doorway just in time to see Fenris bow his head and duck out of the room. But she would deal with that later.

"I'll let you two have some space," Delia said with a grin.

"Oh, but you don't -" Mahariel started.

"Oh, but I do. And I'm exhausted. I think it's going to take more than a few hours to recover from that. A few days perhaps," and she dismissed herself, closing the door behind her.

"I remember this room," said Anders. "I remember loving this room, because I could be alone and," his face fell sharply, "hating it. Because I was alone."

"You were never really alone, Anders," Mahariel said, climbing up to sit on the edge of the bed next to him.

"I wasn't," he agreed, "and I was." He reached out his hand and took hers, the only bare skin on her aside from her face, and gave her fingers a squeeze. His skin was warm.

His skin was warm.

His eyes were clear.

His color was good.

Mahariel put her free hand to her mouth and gasped.

Anders nodded his head.

"It's gone. I can feel it."

"I don't believe you, how -"

"I don't know. Delia only had a few moments to speak to me, but she made it sound like she took more than just Justice out of me. Something else came with him, and she didn't know if -"

"Anders, I thought I made you Tranquil!" Mahariel blurted. It was almost a shriek, almost a laugh.

"What?"

"She said…" Mahariel shook her head. "Until you woke up we couldn't know. She told me the same thing, that something more than Justice had been released from you. I thought - of course I thought the worst. Isn't that what happens to mages? To keep this from happening in the first place? What else could I have thought? That Justice had been with you so long he couldn't be pulled out… out cleanly. That he took all of that spirit, that connection to the Fade, with you. And when Fenris cut him down -"

"When Fenris did what?" He let go of her hand.

"He… He couldn't go back to the Fade, Anders. He was changed."

Anders eyes fell. "That… was what I had tried to prevent. That was why I did what I did. To keep one more spirit from being wiped away; there are so few left now…"

"You said it yourself, Anders. He wasn't Justice anymore. Maybe he wasn't a demon. Maybe he was. Maybe he was something in between."

"Maybe it was the Blight."

Mahariel picked up her head and looked ceiling-ward. How had it never occurred to her? Anders was a man, and perhaps Justice had been warped by his anger, his desire, but Anders was more than a man. He was a Grey Warden. There was - had been - something else that lived inside of him this whole time. Maybe Justice hadn't been the only thing fighting for space inside of Anders' head.

"It doesn't matter," she heard him say through her thoughts. "It's over. It's done now. I am… who I was. Who I used to be."

"That's not entirely true," Mahariel said. "You're still Anders. You're still the mage who defended Vigil's Keep. The healer of Darktown. The catalyst for the mage rebellion. That's still you."

The corner of his lip twitched, and she couldn't tell if it was supposed to be a smile or not. "That was what I told Hawke."

"Hm?"

"When… you gave me the list. The recipe. I told Hawke the ingredients were… for a potion to free myself from Justice."

"Well," Mahariel said, sitting up tall next to him, her hands in her lap, "in a roundabout way, I suppose it turns out that they were."

His lip twitched again, and this time it was definitely a grin. "That's one way to look at it."

"Can I see your…" she motioned her hands along the side of her body, where the worst of Anders Blighted skin had been.

He obliged by carefully beginning to undo all the fastenings on his robes. She waited patiently; his fingers had not entirely recovered, she noticed, and realized perhaps all his ailments were not from the Blight or the spirit; perhaps there was still work to do. But as he let his robes fall open, and Mahariel reached out her hands to push back the black fabric all along his ribs and around to his spine, Mahariel saw almost nothing. The skin was fresh, pink; there were small puckers, like scars on new flesh after a bad burn well-healed, and that was all. There were even small, pale freckles dotting his skin; freckles like the ones that dotted the rest of him as well.

"It looks good," she said.

"That doesn't matter. I… can't hear it anymore. That's how I knew. I woke up and for the first time in, Maker, in so long, it was silent. Blessedly silent. I thought I'd gone deaf, or died. And then I opened my eyes and I was in this little room, and I thought that if I'd died and been denied the Maker, I'd be in the Void, and it wouldn't look like this, and if I'd died and joined the Maker at his side - fat chance of that - it would probably look a lot more like your bedroom than mine." And he winked at her.

And she kissed him.

* * *

 _Author's note:_ Hey guuuuuys, the first chapter of my NaNoWriMo project, **Inquisition, Indiana** , is up! Please head on over and check it out. Posting may be very slow-going because unlike my previous projects I wrote more than 80,000 words of it before I edited it at all, which is why I posted the first chapter now; kind of a place-holder so you guys know that it's like, a real thing. Oh, and also, I still have to finish it.

Anyway, happy Turkey Day to all my US-ian friends, if I don't post again before then. Eat pie for me.


	50. She Didn't Say That

"Wynne is dead."

Mahariel was still tightening her belt as she left Anders' small room; she'd left most of her armor behind; she could always send for it later, and she couldn't think of another instance when she'd need it anyway. But Delia's stark voice stopped her cold for the second time in as many days.

Mahariel turned around to see the mage on the left of Anders' door, the opposite side to which Mahariel had turned. The Warden Commander froze with her hands on her half-adjusted belt, and she turned slowly to face Delia. There were heavy tears in her eyes.

"What… happened?" She took slow, steady steps toward Delia, raising her arms to the woman, who accepted them gladly. She fell into Mahariel's arms and, through tears, began to speak into the flesh of Mahariel's shoulder.

"There was… an incident… at the White Spire, she - she gave her life to save - to save a templar!" Delia cried, muffled by skin and cloth, and Mahariel knew that that was not truly why she was upset, but she reached up and patted the woman's soft blonde hair all the same. The Dalish woman held back her own tears for Delia's sake, and let the mage continue. "How many more, Mahariel? How many more of use will have to die?"

Dozens, thought Mahariel. Scores. Hundreds. More, and more still.

But she didn't say that. Instead, she said, "Too many, da'len. Even if it is only one, it will be too many."

The mage was inconsolable, incoherent for a moment, and then quickly broke away from Mahariel, wiping the dampness from her cheeks with the sleeves of her robe. "There, um…" she cleared her throat, "there is to be a Conclave at the Temple of Sacred Ashes. I… bid your leave to attend."

"Of course, Delia, though I hate to see you go."


	51. Epilogue

It was like the past ten years had never happened, except in the lines on Anders' face and the memories he and the Warden Commander shared. A weight had been lifted, a darkness made light.

Nearly.

Mahariel watched Anders sleep soundly at night while she lie awake to keep out the Calling as best as she could. The voices, the song, all of it was louder now, but - and she hated to ascribe any such thing to the corruption in her veins - she remembered it being more beautiful than this. Something was warped and off-key in her mind and she couldn't explain it.

When Anders was otherwise occupied, she would dig through the library for anything she could find about the Wardens' history; Vigil's Keep was not Weisshaupt, to be sure, but the Keep was old and its history was well-documented.

And she found nothing. Nothing that she could find gave her any more insight to what she was starting to accept was her own demise. There was no more sense denying it. Her hair was not coming out in clumps, but it came out every time she brushed it. She didn't have black patches on her skin, but the veins in her neck, her chest, her arms, her face were darkening into a thick, purple map.

If Anders noticed, he didn't mention it; she could imagine he didn't want to upset her. He was now free of the corruption that was overtaking her. She could see that he would just want to live out the rest of his life in peace with her as long as they could, after all they had been through.

But she couldn't.

Not with him, and not with Fenris, not after all she had seen and done. There was a detachment between Mahariel and her fellow elf, a rift, a breach, and neither of them sought out the other to repair it. And while Anders strove in his own noninvasive way to craft the life he wanted to have had with her the first time two of them had cohabitated at Vigil's Keep, Mahariel found a small voice in the back of her head insisting that it simply was too late.

Mahariel knew what the Warden tradition asked of her: to go out in a blaze of glory, fighting darkspawn in the Deep Roads to the last. Frankly, she had had enough of that to last a lifetime, and she wasn't sure how much lifetime she even had left to last. But she couldn't stay here and rot.

There was a place reaching out to her in her mind. Somewhere west. Mahariel had covered the length and breadth of Ferelden; she knew it like she knew an old friend. But The Calling was sending her into the arms of a stranger. Something in her wanted to resist, and she was almost certain it was her reason, but too much of her, the corrupted parts, and the parts that were tired of fighting, wanted to answer it. She wanted to see what was out there.

Late one night when Anders was sleeping soundly and she was not sleeping - she was not sleeping anymore - she found a map, and she decided. She would go to Orlais, past Val Royeaux, and she would keep going. She would not go down to the Deep Roads; and anyway, her mind was not calling her there. No, she would go west, and she would seek the thing that summoned her. She would do what she had done more than ten years ago, when faced for the first time with her own mortality: she would stare it down, and as the corruption in her veins sang her a song, she would rush to meet it.

THE END

* * *

 _Author's note_ : Well, kids, that's it. The new story, **Inquisition, Indiana** , will be going up on a regular basis from now on, but that's all for Vigilant. And **II** is finished. The ending is already written, so now it's just a matter of editing. And figuring out what to write after that.

Anyway, thanks for all your support through this whole thing; the views and the favorites and the reviews (I'm looking at you, starryskyondragon'sback) really helped keep me going, and convinced me that this was something worth writing. Up until this month, it was the longest thing I had ever written and I wasn't sure that I could keep the thread. So thanks again. See you on the flip side.


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